( 0-1 ) 



It is with great pleasure that we now pnblish Doherty's list, which contains 

 many species not yet recorded from Sumba, among them the most beautiful 

 Ftilinopus dohcrti/i Rotbsch. and other more or less interesting previously unknown 

 forms, as well as the Eckctus Cornelia, the home of which was unknown before. 



With the help of the following list, and another which 1 hope to be able 

 to give of a further collection from Smnba that is probably on the way to 

 Europe, we may hope that, instead of the nnlucky star of which Dr. Meyer 

 complained in 1892, a bright day will soon dawn over our knowledge of the 

 avifauna of the most interesting island of Sumba, thanks to the energy of our 

 collecting friends abroad. 



Sumba or Humba, on the maps also frequently called Tjendana, Tjindana 

 and Chendana, Saudelhout and Sandalwood, not being within the long chain of 

 islands that extends from Java eastwards to Flores, and on to Ombay, Wetter, 

 etc., but being an ontlier south of Flores and west of Timor, is of particular 

 zoogeographical interest, and I think therefore that it is worth while to extract 

 some notes from the valuable and highly interesting account given by Doherty 

 in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, LX. 1891, in a paper entitled 

 " The Butterflies of Snmba and Sambawa, with some Account of the Island of 

 Sumba":— 



" Snmba is one of the largest of the Lesser Sunda Islands, having an area 

 probably exceeding six thousand square miles, for the unexplored southern coast- 

 line, drawn on the maps as concave, is really convex, giving great breadth to 

 the island. . . . Deep sea separates Sumba from Flores, the high peaks of which 

 are distinctly visible from Nangawesi Bay, but a bank covered by 50 — 80 fathoms 

 of water connects it with Eastern Sambawa,* while on the side of Savu and Roti 

 there is apparently deep sea again. . . . The aspect of the north coast of Sumba 

 is most forbidding. Long naked headlands, Sasa, Ngarulubu, Mandoln, famous for 

 their horses, extend far into the sea, marked with the lines of raised beaches. All 

 this side of the island, for as much as forty miles inland and up to a height of 

 two thousand feet, is covered with a sheet of coral overlying sandstone. Near 

 Kawanga the sandstone is uncovered, forming hills curiously carved and water- 

 worn. The coral must be of considerable age, and is often extraordinarily hard, 

 reminding one of the ancient metamorphic limestones of Greece, in Boeotia and 

 Arcadia. Its surface is infinitely rongh and broken, capable of destroying the 

 strongest boots in a few days. Fortunately, wherever the ground is level, the 

 coral is hidden by a coating of indurated clay like laterite, and the native paths 

 keep to this as much as possible. A scanty growth of grass, especially the horrible 

 spear-grass, which renders travelling almost unendurable, covers the coral. 

 Wherever the snrface consists of irregular piles of jagged fragments, bristling 

 with needle-like points, and full of deep rifts and well-like cavities, a dry thorny 

 jungle grows, since horses cannot find foothold there, nor fire reach it. Tiie 

 grass is burnt every May or June, and for some months later the country is as 

 black as a coal, but travelling is easier and is therefore usually done at this 

 season. In some places the soil is exceedingly rich, and the population dense, 

 especially in Melolo and Laura, but the country is everywhere dreary, and is 

 far from green even just after the rain. The coast itself is generally uninhabited 

 for several miles hiland, owing to the depredations of the Eudiuese pirates. The 



* See coirectiug note on p. 579. 



