vi PREFACE 



has been bestowed upon the fauna of the littoral zone and inshore shallow water, 

 except in the case of the Gulf of Mannar, where that of the Ceylon side has been 

 ably dealt with by Peof. Herdman, F.R.S., and the workers associated with him, 

 while the zoology of the Indian side has received considerable attention from 

 Dr. Thurston, the versatile Superintendent of Madras Museum, from Prof. Dendy, 

 F.R.S., and other well-known zoologists in England and India. It is hoped, therefore, 

 that the following reports, dealing as they do exclusively with the marginal waters 

 of a little-known region on the West Coast of India, may prove valuable as a 

 local monograph — the first of its kind in India — and from the standpoint of 

 geographical distril^ution. 



In Part I. I have to acknowledge with grateful thanks the invaluable assistance 

 of Mr. Thomas Southwell, A.R.C.S., F.L.S., Professor J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., 

 Mr. George Crane, B.Sc. of Aberdeen, and Sir Charles Eliot, Sheffield 

 University. The first-named, whom it was my good fortune to have as my 

 scientific assistant during the last eighteen months of my service in Ceylon, besides 

 contributing a report on the Anomura, collaborated with me in the description of 

 a new species of Pinnoteres and also afforded me much help in other directions. 

 Mr. Southwell has now in hand a report upon the Actinozoa which I hope 

 to include in Part II. 



The report on the Aloyonarians of Okhamandal, now furnished by Prof. 

 J. A. Thomson and Mr. George Crane, is particularly valuable on account of the 

 beautifully executed coloured plate which accompanies it and which renders identifi- 

 cation easy of the principal species of this group found in the waters of the Gulf 

 of Kutch. The short contribution by Dewan Bahadur V. M. Samarth is of 

 great interest as indicating, among other things, how a wise and progressive rule, 

 such as that exercised by PIis Highness the Gaekwar, has the power of penetrating 

 every department of government and of endowing each with a portion of the 

 same spirit of enlightened progress. 



The whole of the photographs reproduced, except the frontispiece, are the 

 work of the Vividha Kala Mandir, Baroda, whose representative accompanied me 



