92 Letters, Announcements, S^c. 



single species in the whole list of Kattiawar birds to whicli I 

 should apply tlie term. 



Every one of the species above mentioned has a wide range 

 in India ; to the best of my belief all of them occur throvigh- 

 out a large portion of the peninsula wherever there is forest ; 

 and some of them, e. g. Copsychus saularis and Crocopus phm- 

 nicopterus, are common in gardens and groves of trees even 

 away from the wilder jungles. The birds to which I think 

 the expression " Malabar forms " should be restricted are 

 those characteristic of the hills and forests near the Malabar 

 coast. A few of these are met with on some of the higher hill- 

 ranges of Southern and Central India, and in the great forest- 

 country lying west of Orissa and the northern Circars, but 

 not elsewhere in the Indian peninsula. Thus the peculiarly 

 Malabar form of Palceornis is not P. rosa, but P. columboides ; 

 and the following are some of the birds most characteristic of 

 the Malabar fauna : — Scops malabaricus, Harpactes fasc'iatus, 

 Chrysophlegma chlorophanes , Micropternus gularis and two 

 or three other Woodpeckers, Megalama viridis, Xantholcema 

 malabarica, Leptocoma minima, Tephrodornis sylvicola, Pericro- 

 cotus flammeus, Ochromela niyrorufa, Myiophonus horsfieldii, 

 Hypsipetes ganeesa, Phyllornis malabarica, peculiar species 

 of Alcippe, Pomatorhinus, Garrulax, and Trochalopterum, 

 Dendrocitta leucogastra, &c. &c. It is species such as these, 

 together with such forms as Presbytes johnii and P.jubatus, 

 Platacanthomys, and peculiar species of mungoose and squir- 

 rels amongst mammals, Uropeltida and a host of other marked 

 types amongst Reptilia, peculiar genera of the Cyclophorida 

 amongst laud-shells, and such forms as Tanalia stoinatodon 

 among freshwater mollusks, which give a marked character to 

 the Malabar province, show the close affinity of its fauna to that 

 of Ceylon, and a more distant but still well-marked alliance 

 with that of Malayana, and distinguish it at once from that 

 which is found in the remainder of the Indian peninsula. 



W. T. Blanford. 

 October 1873. 



