1875.] President's Address. 37 



of which have been reproduced in photozincography by the permission of 

 the Surveyor General of India, and the remainder by lithography. 



Dr. Dobson, whose departure from India was announced with regret at 

 the last Annual Meeting, has continued his researches on Asiatic Ghirop- 

 tera, describing several new forms and monographing the Asiatic species of 

 Molossi ; he has also recorded, in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 

 of London, a short but valuable. series of experiments on the respiration of 

 certain Indian freshwater fishers. 



Ornithology has been by no means unrepresented : from Major Godwin- 

 Austen we have received a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of 

 the Avifauna of the Hill-tracts of our N. E. Frontier, illustrated by eight 

 beautifully coloured lithographic plates, several of which have been drawn 

 on the stone by the author himself who has further defrayed one half of 

 their cost. 



In Conchology, the favourite pursuit of our late able Secretary and the 

 one in which he was excelled by no man, we have Dr. Stoliczka's descriptions 

 of new species of Alycsei from those same hill ranges, our zoological know- 

 ledge of which he has done so much to extend, no less by his own writings 

 than by his generous and thoughtful supplies of specimens to others ; we also 

 have Messrs. G. and H. Nevill's paper entitled descriptions of new marine 

 Mollusca from the Indian Ocean, which is interesting and important if only 

 as affording some indication of the extent to which our knowledge of marine 

 zoology can be extended by the dredge. In connection with this, I venture 

 to express the hope now that an Indian Coast Survey has been established, 

 and all the necessary apparatus* supplied by the Secretary of State that the 

 Government will at an early date afford to the Society the long-promised 

 opportunity of exploring the depths of the sea of Bengal, and further that 

 the systematic collection of marine objects, from shore down to 100 fathoms 

 line will be considered not inconsistent with the duty of one of the 

 Officers (e. g. the medical officers) of that survey, as is the practice in the 

 United States and other Coast Surveys. Finally, Mr. Wood-Mason has 

 brought to notice his interesting discovery of a chain of superorbital bones 

 in several species of an Indian genus of partridges, a series of bones the true 

 homologue of which is to be sought for far down in the zoological scale, viz. 

 amongst the Skink lizards and Blindwormas. He has made out the generic 

 identity of certain of the blind crustaceans discovered by the " Challenger" 

 either the Polycheles of Heller and proposed for another the new generic 

 title Thaumastochcles. 



* Tbo experience gained, by the " Challengor" in deep-sea dredging and by the 

 Americans in deep-sea sounding, has removed many difficulties, and has simplified tho 

 operation much, ropes arc being discarded for steel wire coiled into tanks of a solution 

 of caustic soda : by using wire great depths aro quickly reached and the solution per- 

 fectly preserves the wire from rust. 



