/ 



PEEFATORY NOTE. 



A good many reports, more or less of a preliminary character, have been published in various 

 Journals since 1885, relative to the zoological work of the Marine Survey of India, under the title of 

 Natural History Notes from H. M. Indian Marine Surveying Steamer ^Investigator,'' and these 

 unofficial reports have been supplemented since 1892 by the official series — published under the author- 

 ity of the Director of the Indian Marine — of lUicstrations of tlie Zoology of the Royal Indian 

 Marine Survey Ship '■Investigator.' 



The present volume contains an independent Report upon the Brachyurous Crustacea collected 

 by the ' Investigator, ' and it seems advisable to preface it with a short explanation (which has already 

 been published in the Account of the Investigator Deep Sea Madreporaria) of the way in which 

 the ship became connected with deep-sea exploration and with the Indian Museum. 



In the year 1871 the Council of the Asiatic Society of Bengal appointed Dr. T. Oldham, Dr. F. 

 Stoliczka and Mr. J. Wood-Mason to form a sub-committee to report upon the desirability of moving 

 the Government of India to undertake deep-sea dredging in Indian waters. 



The sub-committee drew up an elaborate Memoir on the subject, in which definite proposals for 

 deeiJ-sea di'edging were embodied : this Memoir was submitted to Government, and a copy of it along 

 with a copy of the letter with which it was forwarded, is published in the Proceedings of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal for 1871. 



The Government received the proposals of the Council of the Asiatic Society with cordial approval ; 

 it gave a small gi-ant in aid of canying them into immediate effect,' and when, in 1874, the present 

 Marine Survey Department was established, it sanctioned the appointment, upon the staff of the 

 Survey, of a Sm-geon-Naturalist — an appointment that had also been strongly advocated by the 

 organizer and first head of the Department, Commander Dundas Taylor, I. N. 



But in the early days of the Survey (18741-1881 ) neither machinery nor vessels capable of deep- 

 sea research were available, so that Surgeon (now Lieutenant-Colonel) J. Armstrong, I. M.S., the first 

 Surgeon-Naturalist of the Department, had to report that it was " quite impossible to carry into 

 " execution the scheme of deep-sea dredging originally proposed by the Council of the Asiatic Society of 

 " Bengal," and had to confine himself to the Zoology of the shallow-water aud littoral, although he did 

 manage to dredge in water as deep as 100 fathoms. 



However, in 1876, when it had been decided to construct a special vessel for the accommodation of 

 the Marine Survey, the Council of the Asiatic Society again addressed the Government of India, and 

 asked that provision for deep-sea dredging might not be forgotten in the plans for the new vessel. In 

 reply the Government authorized the Council of the Society to confer with the Dockyard authorities 

 on the subject of such equipment. 



The Council thereupon appointed a sub-committee, consisting of Dr. John Anderson, then Super- 

 intendent of the Indian Museum, and Messrs. J. "Wood-Mason (then Deputy Superintendent of the 

 Indian Museum), W. T. Blanford, H. F. Blanford, and H. B. Medlicott, for the pm-pose of advising 

 the Dockyard authorities in this direction. 



The result of this and other measures was that when, in 1881, the new vessel Investigator was 

 ready for sea, she was properly provided with the means of undertaking deep-sea research as opportu- 

 nity should occur. 



