REPOPiT ON THE EI8HE8 TAKEN BY THE BENGAL 
FTSHERTES STEAMEB “GOLDEN CROWN.” 
PART L— BATOIDEL 
By N. Anhand ALE, D.Sc., Superintendent, Indian Museum. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The trawler ‘ ‘ Golden Crown ’ ’ was purchased in England by the Bengal 
Government in the early part of the year 1908 and commenced work in the Bay of 
Bengal at the beginning of the monsoon season in June of that year. Since then she 
has made num.erous trips, most of which have been confined to the northern parts of 
the Bay. Her work has not been scientific, and she is not equipped for research of 
any kind ; but the Commissioner of Fisheries has permitted me to retain for the 
Museum specimens of the fish captured on each trip. The collection thus obtained has 
served to supplement the ichthyological investigations of Lieutenant-Colonel A. W. 
Alcock and his predecessors and successors as Surgeon Naturalist on the R.I.M.S. 
“ Investigator ” ; for the trawl of the “Golden Crown,” being of the type commonly 
used in commercial fishing, is of a much larger size, and therefore capable of holding 
much larger fish, than any likely to be used for scientific purposes in Indian seas. It 
has, moreover, been used mainly in water of a depth between 20 and 30 fathoms, 
whereas the ‘ ‘ Investigator ’ ’ dredges mainly, but not solely, at much greater depths. 
The collections obtained by the two vessels are therefore complementary to one another. 
The ‘ ‘ Golden Crown ’ ’ has trawled along the greater part of the coast 
from Gopalpur in the Gan jam district of the Madras Presidency to Oyster Island off the 
coast of Burma, but mostly in Balasore Bay, off Konarak and Puri in Orissa, off the 
entrance to the Eastern Channel of the river Hughli, off the Mutlah Lightship at the 
entrance to the Mutlah river, and in the vicinity of Cox’s Bazaar, Chittagong. Most of 
the ground covered has been muddy, but occasionally fine sand, coarse sand, and 
“coral grounds” have been worked. The so-called coral grounds, however, have not 
been coral reefs but places where the bottom has become sufficiently solid to afford a 
support for sedentary organisms of various kinds. Off Gopalpur in about 24 fathoms, 
for instance, enormous numbers of T enagodes s\vq\\s were brought up in the 
trawl, interwoven into rock-like masses with a Lithistid sponge ; off Konarak a 
recent conglomerate of sand and decomposed shells was found to afford a lodging 
to numerous Gorgoniids and Antipatharians, some of the latter reaching a gigantic 
