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EEPORT ON THE FISHES TAKEN BY THE BENGAL 

 FISHERIES STEAMER "GOLDEN CROWN." 



PART I.-^BATOIDEI. 



By N. Ann AND ALE, D.Sc, Superintendent, Indian Museum. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The trawler ' ' Golden Crown ' ' was purchased in England by the Bengal 

 Government in the early part of the year 1908 and commenced work in the Bay of 

 Bengal at the beginning of the monsoon season in June of that year. Since then she 

 has made numerous trips, most of which have been confined to the northern parts of 

 the Bay. Her work has not been scientific, and she is not equipped for research of 

 any kind ; but the Commissioner of Fisheries has permitted me to retain for the 

 Museum specimens of the fish captured on each trip. The collection thus obtained has 

 served to supplement the ichthyological investigations of Lieutenant-Colonel A. W. 

 Alcock and his predecessors and successors as Surgeon Naturalist on the R.I.M.S. 

 ' ' Investigator " ; for the trawl of the ' ' Golden Crown,' ' being of the type commonly 

 used in commercial fishing, is of a much larger size, and therefore capable of holding 

 much larger fish, than any likely to be used for scientific purposes in Indian seas. It 

 has, moreover, been used mainly in water of a depth between 20 and 30 fathoms, 

 whereas the " Investigator " dredges mainly, but not solely, at much greater depths. 

 The collections obtained by the two vessels are therefore complementary to one another. 



The ' ' Golden Crown ' ' has trawled along the greater part of the coast 

 from Gopalpur in the Ganjam district of the Madras Presidency to Oyster Island ofi^ the 

 coast of Burma, but mostly in Balasore Bay, off Konarak and Puri in Orissa, off the 

 entrance to the Eastern Channel of the river Hughli, oft' the Mutlah LightshijD at the 

 entrance to the Mutlah river, and in the vicinity of Cox's Bazaar, Chittagong. Most of 

 the ground covered has been muddy, but occasionally fine sand, coarse sand, and 

 " coral grounds" have been worked. The so-called coral grounds, however, have not 

 been coral reefs but places where the bottom has become sufficiently solid to aft'ord a 

 support for sedentary organisms of various kinds. Off Gopalpur in about 24 fathoms, 

 for instance, enormous numbers of Tenagodes shells were brought up in the 

 trawl, interwoven into rock-hke masses with a Lithistid sponge ; off Konarak a 

 recent conglomerate of sand and decomposed shells was found to afford a lodging 

 to numerous Gorgoniids and Antipatharians, some of the latter reaching a gigantic 



