THE FAUNA OF BRACKISH PONDS AT 

 PORT CANNING, LOWER BENGAL. 



Part I. — Introduction and Preliminary Account of the 



Fauna. 



By N. Annandale, D.Sc, Officiating Superintendent, 

 Indian Museum. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The settlement of Port Canning is situated on the Matla rivei , 

 one of the numerous creeks which run up into the delta of the Ganges, 

 about sixty miles from the open sea. Partly at any rate in con- 

 nection with the Port Canning Improvement Scheme,' which was 

 believed some fort}^ years ago to be about to transform the place 

 into a port rivalling that of Calcutta, a high embankment has been 

 built up along the bank of the estuary, protecting the low-lying 

 land in the neighbourhood from all but exceptional floods. The 

 earth out of which this embankment was formed was apparently 

 dug from a series of pits situated at a short distance, var^'ing up 

 to about a quarter of a mile, from the present edge. These pits 

 are further supplemented b}' a number of smaller ones immediately 

 behind the embankment, which is repaired with earth dug from the 

 latter when it is injured by an unusually high flood. The original 

 pits vary in size, but all have an area of something approaching 

 half an acre. They are now filled with water and are the ponds 

 dealt with in this paper. Judging from maps in the office of 

 the Port Commissioners, Calcutta, they did not exist in 1855. 

 It is evident from Stoliczka's account,^ however, that at any rate 

 some of them existed thirty- nine years ago, and he does not say 

 that they had then been dug recently. 



The account referred to deals in particular with an Actinian 

 and a Polyzoon taken in the ponds ; but it is by no means clear 

 in which pond Stoliczka found his Sagartia schilleriana, as there are 

 several ponds " close to the railway station." This point is of im- 

 portance, because he was only able to find the Actinian in one pond, 

 the position of which he describes in the manner indicated. One 

 factor in the environment of forty years ago, however, has certainly 

 changed ; for he gives as one reason why the Actinian was not to 

 be found in the other ponds that the one close to the station alone 



1 See Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, vol. i, pp. 9I— 98 (/London, 1875,). 

 ■2 In yourn. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, part ii. 1869. P- 5-- 



