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THE BITJDS OF BURMA. 



By Major H. H. Harington, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



Rangoon^ ^^ Bangoon Gazette'^ Press, 1909. 



The object with which this small brochure on Burmese Birds was written 



ia given by the author in his Preface where he states that " the origiral articles 



which appeared in the Rangoon Gazette were written with a hope that they 



mif^ht be a slight help to those who take an interest in our common birds." 



The title of the book is hardly appropriate to its contents, and it would iiave 



been better had it been " Some Common Birds of Fiurma " or something 



equally unpretentious. It dees not attempt to deal with all the biids of 



Burma, and the selection of those with which it does deal is somewhat arbitrary, 



and appears not to have depended so much on any thought-out system as 



on the author's own ideas, or, possibly, upon the sequence in which the 



original articles were written. Major Harington has endeavoured to place 



before his readers a rough sketch of many of the more common birds to be 



found in Burma, both Upper and Lower, and. ralher than enter into long 



scientific descriptions, has given us what he considers a genera! idea of the 



appearance of each bird in life. From these word pictures, he hopes that 



observers may be able to s2}ot the various birds to which their attention may be 



drawn. In some nstances his descriptions are distinctly happy, and any one 



seeing for the first time the bird described by him should be able to recognize 



it. Thus the Bulbul with the "red seat to his trousers" cannot escape 



detection, and many other birds which have some dominant feature in their 



plumage have had this feature seized upon and biought vividly befoie the 



readers' eyes. On the other hand, Major Harington has not been so fortunate 



when he has attempted to draw a picture of the plainer, more insignificant 



birds, such as many of the sombre-coloured Babblers and Wai biers. It 



would be impossible, we fear, for any one to say what bird is described in 



the following words. — "It is about four-and-a-half inches in length, with white 



tips to its tail feathers, its under-parts light-coloured " (The Kufous Fan 



Tail Warbler), or again "about 12 inches in length and large for its size. 



Its upper plumage is grey with black points, under-parts greyish white " 



(The Large Cuckoo Shrike). The notes on habits, nidifications, &c.. 



are nearly always to the point, and, though brief, contain no little infoima- 



tion ; indeed in many cases the readers of these notes will find them of moie 



use in identifying the bird than the actual descriptions which precede them. 



The author is evidently a close observer, and has generally recorded those 



points in a bird's habits which would attract the attention of those for whom 



the first part of this volume is written. 



As regards the sequence in which the families are placed it would perhaps 

 have been better to have adhered to that given in Gates' and Blanford's 

 '• Avifauna," as this is the work to which we are referred to by the author for 



