INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
The Zoological Collections, which the late Dr. Annandale made during his tour 
in the Far East, were submitted by him to specialists both in India and abroad. 
The majority of the groups have already been worked out and the results published ; 
but a few reports on certain portions of the collection have not yet been received. 
The death of Dr. Annandale has unfortunately rendered impossible the completion of 
this volume, and the Council of the Asiatic Society of Bengal has, therefore, decided 
to close the volume, and to publish any further communications dealing with 
these collections which may subsequently be received in the ordinary volumes of the 
" Memoirs." 
It was Dr. Annandale' s intention that the volume should contain much 
more than a mere taxonomic study of the fauna of the lakes that he visited, 
namely. Lake Biwa, the Tai-Hu and the Tale Sap. Throughout life his main interest 
lay in the biological rather than the systematic point of view, and the papers that he 
himself contributed to the volume are full of observations and notes regarding 
the relationship of the animal to its environment. He had intended in a final paper 
to summarize the knowledge that he had gained, and to compare the evolution of the 
fauna not only in these lakes, but also in the Lake of Tiberias in Palestine and 
the Chilka Lake and Inle Lake in India. His conclusions, based as they would have 
been on a careful study of the lacustrine fauna across the whole width of Asia, 
would have had the greatest value, and it is deeply regretted that his death 
has deprived us of what would, undoubtedly, have been the most interesting part of 
the volume. 
R. B. Seymour Sewell, 
Calcutta, Natural History Secretary {Biology), 
September, 1925. Asiatic Society of Bengal. 
