177 
NOTES ON A COLLECTION OF BIRD-SKINS 
FORMED BY MR. E. G. HERBERT, C.M.Z-S-, M.B.O.U. 
By HK. C. Stuarr Baker, F.L.S., F.Z.S., MB.0.U. 
The following notes are the result of an examination of the col- 
lection of beautiful skins brought home by Mr. E. G. Herbert from 
Siam, and presented with great generosity to the British Museum of 
Natural History. The Museum Authorities have kindly allowed me to 
work out the collection, placing every facility and help at my disposal 
for so doing, and I had hoped long before this to have completed my 
pleasant task, and to have despatched the results to Siam. Work 
under present circumstances has been, however, a very difficult matter, 
and I have not been able to spend as much time as I could have wished 
in pressing it forward. It is better, therefore, perhaps, to publish as 
much as has been done, and the rest when possible. A considerable 
number of new sub-species have been described, and it is desirable that 
these should be made known in Siam as soon as possible ; also workers 
in that country, who have not the mass of material for comparison such 
as is available to workers in England, may find the following notes of 
some help in diagnosing the geographical races of the birds they 
obtain. 
A preface in articles of this nature is generally more or less an 
epitome of the completed results ; this, however, must wait until a later 
date, when [| hope Mr. Herbert mvy also be able to add something des- 
cribing the country worked over. 
Siam is a country in which much ornithological work remains 
to be done; many species and sub-spacies have recently been dis- 
covered and described, and doubtless many more remain to be dis- 
covered in the near and distant future. But there is also much we 
still have to learn regarding the distribution and life-history, especially 
nidification, of those birds we already know. 
Mountains of great height, swamps and lakes of vast extent, 
dense forests and wide grass-lands alike form part of Siam, and great 
distances separate North from South, so that variety of species is very 
great, and geographical races are exceptionally numerous. In the 
North aud West we find that the majority of birds are more or less 
typically Burman, or even Indo-Burman, to the East we get a typical 
Chinese avifauna, whilst in the long strip of country running South, 
VOL. HI, NO. III, 1919. 
