A REVIEW OF THE BIRDS OF THE ISLANDS OF SIBERUT 

 AND SIPORA, MENTAWI GROUP ^ (SPOLIA MENTA- 

 WIENSIA) 



By J. H. Riley 



Assista7it Curator, Division of Birds, United States National Museum 



Off the west coast of Sumatra lies a long chain of islands of vary- 

 ing size, stretching from Simalur in the north to Engano in the 

 south, a distance of over 700 miles. Dr. W. L. Abbott became inter- 

 ested in this chain and in the autumn of 1901 visited Simalur, Pulo 

 Babi, Pulo Lasia, and the Banjak Islands, making collections on each 

 of them. The bird material of this collection was worked up by Dr. 

 Charles W. Richmond, who published an account of it.- In the 

 autumn of 1902, Doctor Abbott, accompanied by Mr. C. Boden Kloss, 

 revisited Simalur, and then went to the Pagi and Batu Islands, and 

 Nias, the latter already known ornithologically from Modigliani's 

 explorations; in the autumn of 1904 he visited Engano, and early 

 in 1905 returned to Nias. Dr. H. C. Oberholser^ has published an 

 account of the second Abbott collection from Simalur, but the col- 

 lections from the other islands never have been reported upon as a 

 whole, though Oberholser has described many new forms from them, 

 in one paper* no less than 97, with scattered descriptions at subse- 

 quent dates. In this early paper the descriptions are very brief and 

 are unaccompanied by measurements or information concerning the 

 number of specimens upon which his conclusions were based. For 

 this reason it is utterly impossible for any subsequent worker to reach 

 any definite conclusions with material from adjacent islands without 

 consulting topotypical material. 



^ The present paper is one of a series under the general heading of " Spolia Menta- 

 wiensia," dealing with collections in natural history made in 1924 in the Mentawi Islands 

 by Mr C. Boden Kloss and his assistants of the RaflBes Museum in Singapore. The 

 National Museum is indebted to the friendly cooperation of Dr. W. L. Abbott for a share 

 In the material secured during this worlt. 



» Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 26, 1903, pp. 485-524. 



3 Idem, vol. -55, 1919, pp. 473-498. 



* Smiths. Misc. Coll., vol. 60, no. 7, 1912, pp. 1-22. 



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