90 



PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE FAUNA OF THE TALE SAP 



or inland sea of singgora. 



By N. Annandale, d. sc, f. a. s. b. 



( Director, Zoological Survey of India ). 

 With a Map. 



My first visit to the Tale Sap was made in 1899 as a member of 

 the Skeat Expedition to Peninsular Siani. I was there again in 1902, 

 but merely as a traveller, for nij- object was to reach Penang from 

 Singgora as quickly as possible, The following notes are based mainly 

 on a third visit in January and Februarj', 1916. The object of this 

 last visit was to obtain materials for comparison with a somewhat 

 similar lake or lagoon on the east coast of India, the Chilka Lake in 

 Orissa and the Madras Presidenc}', on which Mr. S. W. Kemp 

 and I have been engaged for some years in preparing a faunistic 

 report. 1 Both lakes are directly connected with large, open, tropical 

 bays, the Chilka Lake with the Bay of Bengal, the Tale Sap with the 

 Gulf of Siam ; both are shallow and muddy, and both contain water 

 that is, at least in part, brackish, and that varies in salinity in 

 accordance with seasonal and climatic conditions. Both, moreover, 

 are separated, geographically and faunisticallj', into an outer and an 

 inner region in which conditions of life are diffjrent, but not always 

 different in precisely the same way, thoughout the year. 



My knowledge of the varj'ing conditions due to hydrographic 

 and other changes in the Chilka Lake is naturally much fuller than 

 that I possess of the Tale Sap. At the former not onlj' had I the inval- 

 uable collaboration of Mr. Kemp in the field, but we were able to 

 make observations at different seasons and at frequent intervals ; 

 whereas in the Tale Sap, I worked alone so far as scientific help was 

 concerned, and only at one period, and that period was at the e.xtreme 

 end of the wet and the beginning of the dry season, in some respects 

 perhaps the most unfavourable from the point of view of the collector. 



I " Fauna of the Chilka Lake." Man. Iiul. Mu.f., vol- V. 1915— 

 (still ill progress). 



JOUUN. NAT. HIST. SOC. SIAM. 



