( 189 ) 



THE BIRDS OF HAINAN. 



By ERNST HARTERT, Ph.D. 



(Plates V. and VI.) 



NOTHING was kuowu about the birds of Hainan, until R. Swinhoe, one of the 

 most ardent ornithologists who ever worked in Eastern Asia, visited the 

 island in 1808 and gave a list of the birds of Hainan, making known for the first 

 time many species peculiar to that island. Naturally, at that time only the 

 lowlands were visited, the mountains being left nntou(^hed. 



Thus remained the state of Hainan ornithology until the late B. Schmacker, a 

 German merchant residing in China, who was also an enthusiastic collector of shells, 

 twice sent a Chinese collector named Tetsu to the island to gather shells for him, 

 and with his usual forethought and interest iu zoology generally, also requested 

 him to bring as many birdskins as possible. Tetsu's trips — although ornithology 

 was a secondary matter with them — had wonderful results, for he discovered the 

 pretty mountain partridge described by Styan under the name of Arboricola ardens, 

 the Teinnunis, Garrulax moiuligi'r schmackeri, and others. Mr. Styan described 

 some of the new forms, and a list of all the specimens was published by the late 

 Dr. Hartlanb. 



A still greater step forward was made by Jolin Whitehead, one of the best 

 field ornithologists who ever was at work in the J^astern Archipelago. In 1889 

 he went to Hainan, and ascended the Five-Fiuger Mountains, where, unfortunately, 

 he lost his life. Whitehead discovered the beautiful Silver Pheasant named after 

 him, a Night-heron (afterwards also obtained on the mainland), the peculiar 

 Uroc'issa ivhitehendi, Garrulax pectoralts semitorquata, Dn/onastes castanotis, 

 Siphia pallidipes hainana, Lepocestes sinensis hainamis, Gecinas canus kainanus, 

 and a new Harpactes, also a number of known forms not before found on Hainan. 



The number of Hainan birds given by Swinhoe in 1870 was 172 ; that of 

 Styan in 1893, after the elimination of some doubtful and wrong ones, 159. This 

 was raised to 2:)0 throngli Whitehead's exiilurati(jn on the Five-Fiuger Mountains. 



Tlie wonderful discoveries made by Whitehead aroused Mr. Rothschild's interest, 

 and he induced Mr. Alan Owston, of Yokohama, to send a collector to Hainan. 

 This he did very soon, and he chose for the expedition an excellent man, who 

 far exceeded most other Japanese collectors. This man, named Katsumata, made 

 even more discoveries than poor Whitehead (who was cut off when his work had 

 only just begun). Katsumata obtained three specimens of the wonderi'ul Arboricola 

 ardens, all the species and subspecies discovered by Tetsu and Whitehead (and 

 not only a few of each, but mostly in series of from ten to sixteen and more), with 

 the exception of Ni/cticora.v ma i//ii fieri and Graminicola striata ; a wonderful lot 

 of novelties, among them a beautiful Cissa, a Serilopkus, and a Pitta, all genera 

 not known to occur on Hainan at all ; and he raised the number of birds known 

 to occur oil Hainan from 2li9 to 281. Seven new forms were at once described 

 by Dr. Rothschild in the Ihdlrtin of the Ornittioloyists- C/id), October 1903, and 

 fourteen mure are differentiated in this article. . The latter was commenced three years 

 ago, but, owing to much other and more pressing work, it was interrupted, and 

 only quite recently taken up again to be completed. 



