Zoological Survey of India

Abstract

THE report of the Zoological Survey of India, recently issued, covers the years 1932-35, coinciding with a period of retrenchment in civil expenditure and consequent restriction of activities. It records the retirement of Lieut.-Colonel R. B. Seymour Sewell in 1933, and his subsequent extensive biological investigations as leader of the Murray Oceano-graphical Expedition to the Indian Ocean, and is written by his successor, Dr. Baini Prashad. The investigations of the Survey include detailed work upon the Trochus shell fisheries of the Andaman Islands; identification of animals of economic importance from the medical or sanitary point of view, carried out for various institutions and public bodies; identification of human and animal remains excavated at various chalcolithic sites in Sind; and anthropological work connected with the census. Unfortunately, the abolition of the post of zoological collector and the necessity of restricting expenditure has greatly reduced the field-collecting and observations which used to be so desirable and characteristic an activity of the Survey.