for the year 1916-17. ' xv 



claim the right to advance Indian zoology by publishing our results 

 in India we are morally bound to assist the scientific men of other 

 countries situated less advantageously than ourselves, to do the same. 



For the more comprehensive results of my tour the Council 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal have generously undertaken to 

 publish a special volume of the Memoirs of the Society, entitled 

 " Zoological Results of a Tour in the Far East " and edited by my- 

 self. One part had already appeared before the end of the financial 

 year 1916-17. I have also communicated a short preliminary paper 

 on the fauna of the Tale Sap to the Journal of the Siam Natural 

 History Society. 



Dr. B. L. Chaudhuri has published in Bengali a popular lecture 

 on the freshwater fish of Bengal that he delivered in the Museum ; 

 he has also published a short synopsis in English. 



LiBRAEY. 



As it has been asserted recently at a meeting of the Indian 

 Science Congress that no adequate zoological library exists in India, 

 I will say a few words of general information about our library. 

 I came out to India myself from the University of Edinburgh in 

 1904 and had then made use of the University libraries at Oxford, 

 Cambridge, Liverpool and St. Andrews : since, I have used those of 

 Tokyo and Kyoto and have visited most of the scientific 'libraries in 

 India. I do not hesitate to state, with this experience and with the 

 knowledge to be gained from the literature of the subject, that the 

 library of the Zoological Survey is not only by far the most im- 

 portant zoological library in Asia but also ^perfectly adequate, in 

 conjunction with those of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the 

 Geological Survey of India and in so far as all branches of pure 

 zoology are concerned, for research in this country, provided that 

 opportunities can be given to honest investigators to visit Calcutta 

 occasionally. Very few great national libraries lend out books. So 

 long as the library of the Zoological Survey was under the direct 

 cotitrol of the Trustees it was necessary to have an unalterable 

 rule that no, book should leave the Museum premises. Since I 

 have become personally responsible I have in a few instances relaxed 

 this rule. The number of books, mainly zoological but including a 

 few anthropolooical and general publications, is approximately 12,000. 

 The number of serials received annually before the* war about 220 ; 

 152 of these were received in exchange. The number actually being 

 received now is only 183, owing to the fact that we are not obtaining 

 any German or Austrian periodicals. The annual grant is Rs. 4.000. 

 I would like here to pay a tribute to Mr. C. 0. Bateman, Librarian, 

 to whose diligence and intelligent interest for some 19 years the 

 good. order of the library is due. 



The additions of 1916-17, which are specified in detail in appendix 

 I, number 1,143. Two hundrea and eighty-five books and 



c 



