XIX. B IRDS. 

 By E. C. Stuart Baker. 



In addition to the birds collected b}^ Mr. Kemp on the Abor 

 Expedition, I have had sent me for examination a large series of 

 skins collected by Dr. J, M. Falkiner, who accompanied the column 

 as Medical Officer, as well as a few others collected by Capt. F. M. 

 Bailey. The skins obtained by Mr. Kemp are all in the collection 

 of the Indian Museum, and bear numbers which I give, prefixed by 

 the abbreviation ^'I.M." The remainder of the skins bear the 

 catalogue numbers of the Bombay Natural History Society, and 

 against these specimens I note the catalogue numbers together with 

 the letters '' B.X.H.S." The whole of these latter have been 

 collected by Dr. Falkiner, with the exception of a few against which 

 I have given in brackets the initials F.M.B. (Capt. Bailey). The 

 names of Capt. Sir George Duff Dunbar and Capt. the Hon, M. de 

 Courcy, who appear also to have collected a few specimens on be- 

 half of the Indian Museum, are also added in some instances. 



The total number of skins I have had to examine is 192 which 

 are referable to iii species; a not inconsiderable number when 

 one takes into account the great difficulties under which the 

 collectors worked and the impossibility of collecting at any dis- 

 tance from the camps or stockades. As might be expected from 

 the nature of the expedition, the birds collected are for the most 

 part species which are conspicuous either on account of their 

 plumage or their habits and the small skulking birds of the Time- 

 liine groups, the Wrens and similar insignificant forms, amongst 

 which we might have hoped to obtain a new species, are very 

 poorly represented. 



Of the III species collected all belong to the true Indo-Hima- 

 layan avifauna with the exception of Cryptolopha jerdoni, which is 

 closer to the eastern than the western form, Aethopyga seheriae 

 seheriae, the specimens of which are curiously like those collected in 

 Bhamo and separated by Hume under the name of andersoni^ and 

 Sitta cinnamoneoventris which shows an approach to S. neglecta. 



The specimens obtained of the genera Megalaema and Cya- 

 nops. Pitta, Myophonciis and Petrophila, which might have been 

 expected to show some slight approximation to the Burmese forms, 

 are all quite typical specimens of the western races. 



On the whole, therefore, we ma}^ say that the collection of 

 birds is representative of what one wauld have expected to find in 

 the Indo-Himalayan-Burmese Region ; but that they are more 

 completely Himalayan and less Burmese in character than are 

 similar collections made south of the Brahmaputra in the same 

 longitude or even further west. 



