CHAPTEE VIL 
THE ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. 
In this chapter we have to trace the history of the 
zoological collections of the Indian Museum and the uses to 
which they have been put both as material for • research and 
as objects of exposition. 
The study of zoology was not encouraged in the begin¬ 
ning by the Asiatic Society ; indeed, Sir William Jones express¬ 
ly discouraged it as likely to bring about unnecessary suffer¬ 
ing and slaughter among the animals of the country. Even a 
prejudice of the Founder naturally had great influence on the 
early history of the Society, and it was not until nearly half a 
century later that serious zoological investigations were 
started under its auspices at the instance of Brian Hodgson, • 
whose researches on the fauna of Nepal afterwards became 
a classic of natural history. 
In the early days of his work in Nepal Brian Hodgson 
presented many valuable specimens to the Society’s Museum, 
to which his precept and example were of the greatest pos¬ 
sible value. The real father of the zoological section of what 
is now the Indian Museum, must, however, be named in 
Edward Blyth (see the biographical notice in chapter ix), 
who was appointed curator in 1841 and immediately 
set about collecting and describing the vertebrate fauna 
of the Indian Empire, and more particularly that of its 
eastern districts, with a diligence and care attested by 
the fact that few of the species he described of which the 
type-specimens have recently been re-examined, have been 
found to be synonymous with others previously recognized. 
To the invertebrates he was able to pay comparatively little 
attention, but it is interesting to note that there are still in 
the Indian Museum specimens of freshwater prawns which he 
had named, evidently with the intention of describing them, 
and that one of his nominal species in this group still awaits 
a scientific diagnosis. 
