1873.] ON BIEDS FEOM THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS. 235 



1873. 



On a Collection of Birds recently made hy Lieut. Eobert Wardlaw Ramsay, F.Z.S., in the Ibis, 1873, 

 Andaman Islands. By Aktiiur, Viscount Walden, P.Z.S., F.R.S. [From ' The Ibis,' P' '^'^^^^ 

 July 1873, Plates XI., XII., XIII., in orig.'] 



A YOUNG member of the B. O. U., Lieutenant R. Wardlaw Ramsay, H.M. 67th Regt., having, in the 

 middle of December 1872, been sent on duty to Port Blair, in the Andaman Islands, immediately 

 after arrival, availed himself with great energy of his opportunities, and, being an excellent shot 

 as well as a keen naturalist, collected in a couple of months 460 specimens of birds, representing 

 62 species. These he has been good enough to forward to me for identification ; and as many 

 of them are of considerable interest and are accompanied by useful notes, I venture to offer to 

 the readers of ' The Ibis ' the following list of them, together with some observations on the 

 more important species. 



Mr. Blyth and the late Colonel Tytler are the principal authors who, until quite lately, had 

 investigated the ornithology of the Andamans. But in February last, Mr. V. Ball * followed up 

 two former and less complete papers on that subject by publishing an admirable list of the birds 

 known to occur in the Andamans and Nicobars, every species hitherto noted as an inhabitant of 

 these two insular groups being included. The list makes the total number recorded amount to 

 133 ; from which 2-1 must be deducted as being species as yet only known to inhabit the Nicobars, 

 while 4 more are titles which doubtfully belong to Andaman species. To these 105 species 

 of Andaman birds must be added some 18 species sent to Mr. Hume f after Mr. Ball's paper was 

 in print, thus raising the total to 113, less 5, which are not indigenous, having been introduced 

 by Colonel Tytler. Mr. Ramsay obtained two species, new to the Andaman fauna, which when 

 added make the complete number of known Andaman birds at this date reach to about 110 species. 



The avifauna of the Andamans, while containing some peculiar species, appears to resemble 

 in character that of the highlands of India south of the Himalayas and west of the Brahmapootra, Ibis, 1873, 

 rather than that of the ludo-Malayan or Indo-Chinese countries. !'■ ~^'- 



1. Pal^egrnis eupatrius (Linn.), S. N. i. p. 140. no. 7, ex Briss.; Finsch, Papag. ii. p. 11. 

 no. 89. 



Fsittaca ginginiana, Briss. Orn. iv. p. 343, ex " Ginginiano regno." 



Palceornis alexandri, auct. nee Linn. 



Palceornis magnirostris. Ball, J. A. S. B. xli. p. 278, "Andamans" (1872). 



" S. Andaman : ? , iris straw-colour, a yellow rim round each eye." 



Two females, do not differ from Ceylon, Indian, and Burmese examples of that sex. Bill 

 not so large as in Ceylon and Candeish individuals. 



2. Pal^ornis melanoehtnchus, Wagler, Monogr. p. 511. no. 4 (1832); Finsch, Papag. ii. 

 p. 70. no. 98, ? adult. 



Palceornis nigrirostris, Hodgs. Gray's Zool. Misc. p. 85, "Nipaul" (1844), ? juv. 



* Str. Feathers, i. p. 51. t Op. clt. p. 304. 



