for tlie year 1916-17. iii 



Perhaps we have expended too much energy in the last few years 

 in distributing collections abroad, greatly indebted as we have been 

 to those who have assisted us by examining them. Our primary 

 work must be done in India. 



Other points might also be noticed in dealing with the progress 

 of the department, especially the re-prganization and increase 

 of the staff, but this is rather the root of the tree of progress than 

 its fruit. All that need be said is,- that on the inauguration of the 

 Survey, the staff, small as it was, was more than double what it 

 had been ten years before. Without the whole-hearted assistance of 

 its members gazetted and non-gazetted, no progress could have been 

 made, for in a scientific department the director can only direct, 

 not create. 



Future Work of the Department. 



The new department commenced its official career with a staff of 

 four scientific officers. To any school-boy it must be clear that four 

 men cannot conduct a real survey of the Indian Empire. In theory 

 we should visit every district in India and Burma, investigate, and 

 collect specimens of, its complete fauna, study the relationships of 

 the different species and ffiially work out the collections at head- 

 quarters. In practice all we can do is to visit a few selected 

 localities of limited area and there investigate the animal communities 

 of some particular environment, or make collections of the species 

 belonging to some particular group or groups. At headquarters we 

 can only work out a very small proportion of the specimens we 

 collect or obtain from other sources. The department had to be 

 called a Survey because analogous departments in botany, geology, 

 etc., are called Surveys; The term is appropriate in so far as it 

 expresses the nature, but not the extent, of our work. 



The lines of progress most likely to be profitable in the Zoological 

 Survey can be laid down with greater precision than is usually the 

 case in a new department, because it existed and developed as it 

 were in embryo for many long years before it was officially brought 

 to birth. Our primary function can hardly be to conduct either 

 morphological or economic research. These are subjects rather for 

 the colleges of India on the one hand and for the technical depart- 

 ments on the other. Our investigations must be those of pioneers 

 preparing the road along which morphologists, biologists, economic 

 entomologists, students of fisheries and others may travel in the 

 future. We are far from contemning morphological or economic 

 research, but we do. not think that the time is ripe for us to devote 

 our time to morphology ; we realize the temptations that beset the 

 man bound to provide practical results ; we pray to be delivered 

 from these temptations, and we are convinced that it is impossible 

 to build a solid structure of practical results except on a sound 

 basis of pure science. 



