1900.] Annual Address. 27 



Carcinology, and has published three papers, two of which are finished 

 monographs, according to modern standards, of the groups with which 

 they deal, namely the Brachyura Gtjclovietopa and the Brachyura Primi- 

 genia or Dromiacea. The third is of more general and bionoraic 

 interest, and refers to the subject of commensalism between Zoophytes 

 and Hermit crabs. 



Mr. de Niceville has worthily continued his work on Oriental 

 Lepidoptera by a List of the Butterflies of Ceylon, and a brief paper 

 by Dr. Hooper on the ancient drug Akakia has revived a branch of our 

 subject which has long been without contributions. 



For the rest, Ornithology has been unusually to the fore this 

 year. The birds of Manipur form the subject of a paper communicated 

 by Lieut. H. H. Turner, and a short note by Captain H. S. Wood, I.M.S., 

 gives a much-needed account of the rare Hume's Bush-quail {Microperdix 

 manipurensis) of that State. Lastly, the Natural History Secretary'', 

 Mr. Finn, has been able to make several ornithological exhibits, often 

 of living birds, including specimens of the rare Bronze-Cap [Eunetta 

 falcata) ^ind Clucking (Nettium formosum) Teals; and has described a 

 new species of Bhimraj or Racket-tailed Drongo (Dissemunis alcochi) 

 and also what has turned out to be the long-unknown summer-plumage 

 of Hume's large Weaver-bird { Ploceus megarhynchus) . 



The biological work of the Indian Marine Survey is so intimately 

 connected with the history of the Society that its progress during the 

 year may be appropriately referred to here. 



The long series of deep-sea investigations, which the Survey has 

 been patiently carrying on for nearly fifteen years, and the results of 

 which have hitherto been known only through preliminary communica- 

 tions, are now beginning to culminate in important monographs, the 

 interest of which is quite as much bionomic and zoogeographical as 

 faunistic. During the year there have been published volumes on the 

 Deep-sea Madreporaria, the Deep-sea Brachj^ura and the Deep-sea 

 Fishes by Major Alcock, and on the Deep-sea Ophiuroidea, by Dr. R. 

 Koehler of Lyons. 



Besides this, Major Alcock has published in the " Scientific 

 Memoirs by Medical Officers of the Armj'- of India " a summarj^ of the 

 Deep-sea Zoological work of the Survey." 



The circular issued by the Society has borne fruit in a number 

 of papers on folk-lore, which will be welcome to the numerous students 

 in Europe who are at work on this fascinating subject. I may mention 

 here that Mr. A. M. Jackson of the Bombay Civil Service, a well-known 

 scholar and ethnologist, has had the circular translated and sent 

 roun.d to a number of village school-masters in Gujerat, whose replies 



