56 Mr. R. B. Sharpens Introduction 



Khasia, Naga, Garo, and Muiiipur hills. McClelland col- 

 lected a certain number of specimens in Assam, which were 

 presented by him to the India Museum, and are now in the 

 national collection. They are most wretchedly preserved, 

 and are without any indication of locality, sex, or date of 

 capture. To Colonel Godwin-Austen we are indebted for 

 scattered lists of the birds procured by him and his assis- 

 tants during the surveys of the hill-ranges of North-eastern 

 Bengal ; and a connected account of the ornithological 

 results obtained by these expeditions would be of the greatest 

 assistance to students. These hill-ranges seem to have been 

 well explored by Colonel Godwin-Austen, who has described 

 some beautiful new species, and whose collection of birds 

 from these localities is very extensive. 



The province of Arracan is almost unknown as regards its 

 ornithology. In 1875 the late Mr. Blyth prepared a list of 

 the "Birds of Burmah/' but unfortunately his death pre- 

 vented the publication by his own hands : it was, however, 

 most ably edited by the late Marquis of Tweeddale [then 

 Lord Walden] , who not only added his own information on 

 the subject, but included the birds recorded shortly before 

 by Mr. Hume from Tenasserim, and the important collec- 

 tions made by Captain Wardlaw Ramsay in the State of 

 Karen-nee. We have not yet alluded to the labours of an 

 excellent naturalist in Pegu, Mr. Eugene W. Gates, who has 

 quite recently incorporated the results of his former papers 

 along with those of other field-naturalists in an admirable 

 * Handbook to the Birds of British Burmah.' This work 

 gives a concise account of the author^s own researches in 

 Pegu, and of those of Mr. Davison and Captain Bingham in 

 Tenasserim. We may refer to this work, one of the best of 

 its kind ever written, as proving by the numberless instances 

 in which Mr. Hume^s name is quoted, tlie immense influence 

 which he has exercised on Asiatic ornithology. 



Here must be mentioned also the work by Dr. Anderson 

 on the zoological results of the second expedition to Yunnan. 

 Unfortunately this expedition did not succeed in penetrating 

 further than the frontiers of tliat province ; but many in- 



