Northern Portion of the Mala;/ Peninsula. 661 



Mr. Leonard Wray, the first Curator of the Perak Museum, 

 deserves special mention. 



In 1882 a paper was published on the Ornis of the Island 

 of Salanga, also known as Tongka or Junk Zeylon, which 

 must not be confused with the State of Selangor in the south 

 of the Peninsula. This paper, which added little to our know- 

 ledge and contains numerous incorrect identifications, is duly 

 mentioned in the synonymy. 



From 1882 onwards the northern Malay Peninsula was 

 left severely alone by the ornithologist until 1896, when the 

 native State of Trang was visited by the famous American 

 collector and naturalist, Dr. W. L. Abbott, of Philadelphia. 



Dr. Abbott speut some considerable time in Trang during 

 the years 1896 and 1897 and also in 1899, and in addition to 

 forming a collection of mammals, which was the starting- 

 point of the reinvestigation of that section of the Malayan 

 fauna from a modern standpoint, he got together a series 

 of over three thousand bird-skins. A few species have been 

 described from this magnificent collection by Dr. C. W. Rich- 

 mond and other specimens have been mentioned, but it is 

 extremely unfortunate that no full account of it has as yet 

 appeared, as, from information kindly supplied to us by 

 Dr. Richmond, it is evident that it contains material of veiy 

 great interest, including examples of several species not 

 hitherto recorded from the Peninsular area. 



It was largely with a view to securing examples of species 

 which we knew Dr. Abbott had obtained in Trang, but which 

 were desiderata to the local collections, that we decided to 

 work that State, which had remained unvisited by a collector 

 since 1900, though in 1902 Dr. Annandale passed through 

 it from the eastern side and noted a few interesting birds, 

 notably the Wood-Duck, Asarcor?iis leucoptera. 



The following papers deal directly with that district, but, 

 except in a few instances, we have not quoted them, but have 

 confined the synonymy to a reference to the ' Catalogue of 

 Birds' and to a recent paper by one of us which is quoted 

 throughout as " Robinson " : — 



