to Gould's ' Birds of Asia.' 55 



without consulting the pages of '' Stray Feathers/ which is 

 the curiously chosen title of Mr. Hume's journal^ would be 

 as impossible as for any one to essay to write a history of 

 Neotropical birds without referring to the works of Dr. Sclater 

 and Mr. Salvin. Suffice it to say that Mr. Hume has suc- 

 ceeded in interesting a large number of ardent naturalists in 

 a study of the birds of India ; and although he has been sin- 

 gularly fortunate in the number and calibre of his coadjutors, 

 the credit of the extraordinary advance which the study of 

 Indian ornithology has made during the last twelve years is 

 mainly due to the energy of Mr. Hume himself. Not only 

 does his journal contain useful lists of species from various 

 parts of the Indian peninsula, but important essays will be 

 found therein on the ornithology of Yarkand, Afghanistan, 

 Sindh, Tenasserim (occupying an entire volume of 524 pages), 

 and the Malayan peninsula. In England, too, considerable 

 energy has been shown in the study of Indian ornithology. 

 Besides the uninterrupted issue of the ' Birds of Asia,' this 

 country was indebted to the late Marquis of Tweeddale for 

 many of the most valuable memoirs ever written on birds. 

 His large collections and his intimate knowledge of ornitho- 

 logical literature rendered him the first authority on Asiatic 

 ornithology in this country ; and his untimely death was 

 mourned by the entire scientific world. 



The islands in the Bay of Bengal have been thoroughly 

 explored on Mr. Hume's behalf by Mr. W. Davison, pro- 

 bably one of the best collectors that science has ever known ; 

 and it is to this same gentleman that we are indebted for very 

 successful ornithological results in Tenasserim and the Ma- 

 layan peninsula. Captain Wardlaw Ramsay has also largely 

 contributed to our knowledge of the avifauna of the Andaman 

 Islands. The history of the 'Birds of Ceylon' by Major 

 Vincent Legge is simply a model work. Having resided in 

 the island for seven years, he devoted his attention to its 

 ornithology, and has published the results of his studies in 

 a large qiiarto volume of 1237 pages. 



No connected account has yet been published of the birds 

 of Assam and the hills of North-eastern Bengalj such as the 



