for the i/eais 1917-20. xxi 



primitive craft employed by fishermen of Sindhi origin in certain parts 

 of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The coracle and the model 

 of the tutin were purchased, while that of the craft from the United 

 Provinces was presented, with a photograph, by Lieutenant-Colonel 

 A. Cunningham. A few additions have also been made to our collec- 

 tion of primitive weighing-apparatus, and we have to thank Mr. J. H. 

 Hutton, I.C.S., Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills, for some valu- 

 able specimens of apparatus of the kind and other objects used by the 

 various tribes of that district. A peculiarity of the culture of the people 

 of the Manipur valley may be noted here, namely that they use no form 

 of weighing-apparatus in their markets but measure all commodities, 

 even fish, in baskets or other hollow receptacles. 



Museum Galleries. 



Zoological Galleries. — The least satisfactory part of the work of 

 the Zoological Survey of India is that connected with the public 

 galleries of the Indian Museum. Lack of specialists' knowledge of birds 

 and mammals, scarcity of dust-proof cases, bad lighting of the galleries 

 and general squalor due to the paucity of menial staff, combine to 

 prevent the galleries becoming either attractive or of first- class educa- 

 tional value. All these difficulties may be summed up in the phrase 

 " lack of funds and staf^." Some years ago a wealthy patron of a 

 very popular museum, not situated in the British Empire, visited 

 Calcutta and after telling me of his benefactions to his museum, including 

 the purchase of a " rukh's egg " (Aepyorms), he exclaimed on seeing 

 copies of the Records of the Indian Museum, " I wish that our museum 

 could afford publications of the kind." This is a parable, and the moral 

 is that a department with four scientific officers cannot both conduct 

 a survey of the Indian Empire and at the same time pay due attention 

 to the educational development of the galleries of an imperial Museum. 

 The recognition by the Government of India of the Zoological Survey 

 of India on the recommendation of the Trustees of the Indian Museum 

 justifies me from an official point of view in regarding the most impor- 

 tant functions of the depaitment to be those of a research institute ; 

 from a scientific point of view no justification is necessary. 1 would 

 give a great deal to see the museum galleries developed on what I con- 

 sider pro23er lines ; but at present it can't be done. 



All that has been accomplished in our zoological galleries in the 

 last three years has been the addition of a few stuffed biids and mam- 

 mals, of one or two cases of insects and of a few fish in spirit. Dr. Gi avely 

 commenced a rearrangement of the molluscs in the large Invertebrate 

 gallery, which has been closed to the public since before the war, but 

 was obliged to give it up by stress of other work. 



Ethnological Galleries. — Better progress has been made in these 

 galleries, thanks to the assistance of Dr. G. H, Meerwarth, late of the 

 Imperial Ethnographical Museum in Petiograd. Dr. Meerwarth was 

 employed for some time by the depaitment, and was able to com- 

 plete his rearrangement of the musical instruments (referred to in my 

 last report), of the weighing anel measuring apparatus and of the exhibits 



