1918.] The Fifth Indian Science Congress. C@XXXix 
time, either in connection with fisheries or with reference to the 
ment of the Zoological Survey of India has received a very 
large number of fishes for identification, some of which are 
believed to be new to science or most of these we are 
indebted to Mr. G. C. L. Howell. We regret his absence to-day 
and the circumstances that have taken him away from the 
pursuit of his choice. We are glad to notice the spirit of 
healthy co-operation that exists between the Zoological Survey 
of India on one hand and the provincial Fisheries on the other. 
It is perhaps not too much to hope that the Zoological Survey 
will become a central station for zoological work in India 
hent of India to listen to or glance through, as a preliminary 
step, a list of works on Ichthyology, however trite and imper- 
fect it be, that have reference to the fishes of India. 
: Regarding the economic value of fish Linnaeus once said 
and the necessities of the poor, that man might with less 
inconvenience, give up the whole class of birds and many of the 
ett investigations ; it therefore may not be unreasonable to 
a ven a layman may find some interest in a brief 
a Sod King Asoka, because the importance of these enumera- 
town * Purely historical and the records do not actually lead us 
Mis the advancement of our knowledge of Indian Ichthyo- 
kant Study of Indian Ichth yology demands rather extensive 
India ge of fish-literature. The relations of the fishes of 
are fine almost world-wide. The fishes of India, on one side, 
Africa ated to those of Central and Western Asia as well as 
(Riel: on the other hand, to those of the Malay oc alg 
Korea, 7 Malay Archipelago, the Philippines, China, Japan - 
found. Te is at least one freshwater genus which is also 
fishes “s far away as South America. Many of the marine 
of the coasts and the estuaries of India are found in the 
