( 112 .) 



6600 feet. It was reported to have some sort of jungle or scrub right up to the 

 summit, whereas most of the other high monutains are said to be bare aud grassy 

 on their upper portions. 1 found on inquiry that no difficulty whatever existed, 

 apparently, to reaching aud working at the monntain, and accordingly, having 

 collected most of the birds at Atapupn, and having been furnished by tlie 

 ' Posthouder ' with a man whom he recommended as guide and interpreter, 

 I dispatched my men and luggage in charge of the latter, to go up as far as 

 Filaran, intending to follow myself as soon as the steamer had passed. On the 

 27th, however, the guide came down, and reported to the 'Posthouder' that the 

 pt'oj)le at Filaran were in a panic at the news of my coming up, had removed 

 their families, cattle, etc., aud that it was impossible to obtain a single pony or 

 carrier. To make a long story short, I ultimately had to withdraw my men and 

 abandon the idea of reaching the monntain. I subsequently ascertained that the 

 guide had himself caused the panic, by telling the Timorese that my baggage 

 consisted of gunpowder and bullets. The ignorant people, who were being shot 

 and seized by the Portuguese on the frontier at the time, jumped at once to the 

 conclusion that I was in league with the latter, and was coming np to attack them : 

 and nothing would have disabused them of the idea except the ' Posthouder ' 

 going nj) with me, which, however, he was disinclined to do. My collection was 

 thus formed entirely within a radius of about a dozen mile? of Atapu])U, aud well 

 below 2000 feet, in fact mostly below 600 feet. I have obtained good series of 

 many species, which will be useful for comparison with the birds from other 

 islands. I was much disappointed by getting no Pitta ! These birds were 

 diligently sought for, but not one was ever seen or heard. 



" The heat in Timor was terrible, and we were all more or less sick. I got 

 back to Makassar on the 3rd of September, and had to send home two of my 

 Labuan men. My servant is down with strong fever, which does not seem inclined 

 to get better, and I am not well myself" 



Collections of Im-ds from Timor have not often reached Europe. The largest 

 collection in Timor has been made by that admirable Dntch traveller Salomon 

 Miiller, and his discoveries of new birds were mostly published in Dutch language 

 in footnotes in his great work on the Land- eti I 'olkfnhuiiile of the Dutch East Indies ; 

 others were described by Temminck, others by Miiller it Schlegel. The next large 

 collection was made by Wallace, and the cream of it is now in the British Museum. 

 Quite recently a Portuguese collector, with the English name of Newton, has sent 

 many birds from Timor to the Lisbon Museum, but nothing is so far published about 

 them, and we do not know whether he made any new discoveries in birds. 



1. Corvus macrorhynchus Wagl. 



'i^o females, both with the wing-quills in monlt, shot at Filaran in July 1897. 

 They are like specimens from Flores and elsewhere. 



2. Artamus perspicillatus P>p. 



This species, which has its closest ally {A. melanops) in Australia, was found 

 at Filaran in W. Timor and at Atapnpn. A young bird, just out of the nest, has 

 narrow shaft-lines aud tips of a brownish buff colour to the feathers of the upper 



