exxxii Proceedings of the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal. [N.S., XVI, 
Section of Zoology. 
President :—Dr. F. H. Gravety, D.Sc. 
Presidential Address, 
In opening the sittings of the Section of Zoology at this, 
the eighth Indian Science Congress, I propose to give a short ac- 
count of the history of zoology in Indiaand Ceylon. Parts of the 
subject have already been dealt with in the Centenary Volumes 
published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1886 and by the 
Indian Museum in 1914, in Dr. N. Annandale’s “Recent Advances 
in our knowledge of the Freshwater Fauna of India! and in the 
history of Indian Ichthyology which formed Dr. B. L. Chaudhuri’s 
est that can be used to fill in the outlines of this brief sketch 
of the field as a whole. I am also indebted to Dr. Annandale, 
for calling my attention to several points that I had at first 
overlooked. 
less reveal many other early references: but this is a subject on 
which it would be unnecessary to dwell here even if I had the 
h 
enumerations” as regards fish, Dr. Chaudhuri has told us, “is 
by the Emporer Asoka have, I am informed, left no record of 
+ 
The history of Indian Zoology may then be said to date 
from the captivity of Robert Knox in Kandy, which extended 
from 1659 to 1679. Knox had accompanied his father, a Com- 
3 
oe flsiatic Soc. Bengal, (N.8.) XIV, 1918, pp. cxxxviii-cl 
4 An annoted list of the ‘‘ Animals in the Inscriptions of Pyadasi”’ (= 
Asoka) by Monmohan Chakravarti has been published in the Memoirs of 
the Asiatic Society of Bengal { Vol, I, pp. 361-374, 1906 ). 
