30G REPORT — 1903. 



During the past year two parts of ' The Fauna and Geography of the 

 Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes ' have been published, i.e. Part IV., 

 completing Volume I., and Part I. of Volume II. They contain reports 

 by Mr. C. Forster Cooper on the Cephalochorda ; by Mr. R. C. Punnett 

 on Meristic Variation in the Cephalochorda ; by Dr. Gadow and Mr. 

 Stanley Gardiner on the Birds ; by Mr. F. E. Beddard on the Earth- 

 worms ; by Mr. W. F. Lanchester on the Stomatopoda ; by Mr L. A. 

 Borradaile on the Crabs of the groups Catometopa, Oxystoraata, and 

 Dromiacea, and on the Cirripedia ; by Dr. M. Foslie of Trondhjem on 

 the Lithothamnia, important reef-building alg« ; by Professor Sydney J. 

 Hickson fiiid Miss Pi-att, two most valuable and interesting papers on the 

 Alcyonaria of the Maldives ; by Sir Chas. Eliot, K.C.M.G., on the Nudi- 

 branchiata ; by Mr. F. F Laidlaw on a Land Planarian, the first recoi'ded 

 from an oceanic atoll ; and by Sir John Murray and Mr. Stanley 

 Gardiner on the Lagoon Deposits. 



Part II. of Volume II. is in the press, and will contain, among others, 

 papers ]^y Mr. Edgar Smith on the Shelled Mollusca, of which 381 are 

 recorded ; and by Mr. R. C. Punnett on the Enteropneusta, fourteen 

 species and varieties, with an account of meristic variation in the gi'oup. 



Reports are shortly expected on most of the other groups which 

 have not already been dealt with. A list of the genera and the pelagic 

 species of Foraminifera has been given in the report on ' Lagoon 

 Deposits.' In viev/ of the accounts published or in the press on the 

 East Indian Foraminifera, and also of the necessary limitation of space, 

 it is not proposed to give any further report. Mr. Cyril Crossland has 

 undertaken to work out the Polychaita in conjunction with his own 

 collection from Zanzibar. The group shows great variability, and the 

 collections are both of very considerable size, similar in genera, and from 

 two well-defined areas of the Indian Ocean, of which the physical features 

 are known. As it is obviously greatly to the advancement of our know- 

 ledge of the group, I have agreed that the two collections shall be 

 reported on together in a single paper, of which the first part has already 

 appeared in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society.' I am myself at 

 present engaged in preparing my report on the true Corals (Madre- 

 poraria), but the work is one of considerable difficulty, as at present 

 practically nothing is known of variation in this group of animals. 



Volunteers are urgently desired for the Hydroid Polyps, Actiniarians, 

 Pteropods, Holothurians, and some other groups. It is not proposed to 

 publish any detailed report on the whole pelagic fauna, as it would be 

 foreign to the main objects of the expedition. The collection is of course 

 open to specialists who desire to examine it for different groups of 

 animals. 



In addition to the papers enumerated above as published in the year 

 1902-03, I have concluded my article on the coral formations with a 

 detailed description of the Maldive atolls and banks in Appendix B, and 

 some concluding remarks on the food, life, and death of corals in 

 Appendix C. So far as possible I have shown in the text and in a series 

 of figures the present conditions of the Maldive atolls and reefs visited 

 by my expedition. The surveys were made in comparison with the 

 already existing charts. They do not pretend to strict topographical 

 accuracy, but were such as the very limited means and time at our disposal 

 enabled us to do. They were intended for comparison only ; but being, 

 I believe, fairly accurate, so far as specific islands, reefs, lagoons, depths, 



