906 i-EOCEEDlNGS OF THE THIED ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



the resulting specimens either to Pusa or direct to Professor Poulton. 

 It is not easy to rear them in numbers ; at least, we have not found it 

 possible at Pusa to rear mo\e than two generations, so far. 



If you will collect specimens of P. polyles, taking indiscriminately 

 all the examples seen at one time in any one place of P. fohjtes, P. hector 

 and P. aristolochice, that will also be useful, as giving us an idea of the 

 relative proportions of occurrence of the different female forms and of 

 the species which they resemble. 



Another Papilio which would well repay breeding in numbers is 

 Pafilio memnon which has numerous distinct forms of females, some 

 tailed and some tail-less. In Java both tailed and tail-less forms have 

 been bred from one batch of eggs, but I do not think that P. memnon 

 has ever been reared oii any scale in India. 



I am sure that I am endorsing the feelings of this Meeting in saying 

 how grateful we are to Professor Poulton for sending us this paper. 



61.— THE IMPORTANCE OF INSECTS TO FISHERIES. 



By B. Prashad, D.Sc, Officiating Director of Fisheries, Bengal and 

 Bihar and Orissa. 

 Most people are quite unaware of the influence of insects on iisheries 

 and fishes and to them the title of this short paper would certainly sound 

 very strange but it should be distinctly understood that the insect fauna 

 of a given area of water exerts not only a potential but a real influence on 

 the fishes living in it. For a pisciculturist, therefore the knowledge of 

 the insect life of his fisheries is of as great an importance as that of the 

 vegetation of these waters. From these facts it is quite apparent that 

 the problems involved in fisheries are neither simple nor one-sided, and 

 require for their solution a very serious research into all types of aquatic 

 plants and animals, besides a thorough understanding of the general 

 biological conditions of the fisheries in question. In this paper I have 

 considered in a general way the relations of insects to fisheries. Scarcity 

 of information on the various heads does not allow of a more detailed 

 treatment and it is wdth great diffidence that this incomplete paper is 

 presented before the Entomological Conference. But then the object 

 of the paper is to show our ignorance of the various problems, and il 

 possible, to enlist by so doing the sympathies of the entomologists and 

 others for helping us in the solution of these problems. The total number 

 of scientific workers in India is very small and it is only through co- 

 operation with one another that any real progress can be made under the 

 existing circumstances. It will not be out of place to point out here that 

 the importance of the investigations like the present one is as great to 



