234 Mr. K. B. Sharpens Contributions to the 



ground to wliicli lie Las now devoted himself. I owe an apo- 

 logy to Governor Ussher for not having already placed on 

 record some account of the fine series of birds which he sent 

 over to me for description ; but during the last few months 

 collections have followed each other in such quick succes- 

 sion that I have had to revise each paper as soon as it Avas 

 finished, in order to incorporate the new material which 

 was submitted to me. The great interest attaching to 

 Governor Ussher's collections consists in the very careful 

 manner in which each skin is prepared and the locality 

 recorded, so that we have now exact data for determining the 

 relations of the avifauna of Labuan to that of the coast 

 of Borneo opposite. This is the more necessary, as Mr. 

 Low informs me that the collections forwarded by him to 

 England for so many years, and recorded in each instance as 

 from the island of Labuan, were by no means entirely from 

 the island itself, but were supplemented by large additions 

 from the mainland"^. 



Governor Ussher writes to me ; — ^^The accompanying col- 

 lections have been made between May 1876 and March 1877. 

 They would have been more extensive as regards the main- 

 land of Borneo, did not official duties prevent my going over 

 frequently ; and, moreover, I was invalided from December 

 1876 to February 1877, when I had to go off to Hongkong. 

 The most complete collection is the one made in the island 

 of Labuan itself and its dependent islets, Daat, Pappan, Kura- 

 man, Big and Little Rusiikan, and Enoe. With the excep- 

 tion of a Euplocamus ?iobilis, from Sarawak, and a few birds 

 from the Lawas river, the majority of the Bornean birds are 

 from the Kadyan settlement of Lumbidan, on the north-west 

 coast of Borneo, and from the vicinity of Brunei, its capital ; 

 a few skins are included from Moara Island, at the mouth of 

 the Brunei river .■'^ 



I had hardly completed my description of Governor Ussher^s 

 collections, when I Avas requested by the authorities of the 



* I have lately read Ijefore the Zoological Society of London a paper 

 coiit.xining an exact list of Labuan hivds, as determined by Governor Ussher 

 and INlv. Treacher (see P. Z. S, 1879, p. ;jl7). 



