476 OX A COLLECTION OF BIEDS FllOM THE [1877- 



Ibis, 1877, On a CoUedion of Birch made hj Mr. E. C. Buxton in the District of Lanqiong, S.E. Sumatra. 

 ^' ^^^' By Arthur, Marquis of Tweeddale, M.B.O.U. [From ' The Ibis,' July 1877, Plates V. 



& VI. in orig.] 



The first systematic account of the Avifauna of Sumatra was written by Sir Stamford Raffles * at 

 Fort Marlborough, near Bencoolen, of which Sir Stamford was Lieutenant-Governor. Bencoolen 

 is situated on the western shore of the southern half of the island of Sumatra ; and most of the 

 birds enumerated were obtained in the vicinity of Bencoolen itself, or during short trips made 

 into the interior of the district of that name during the years 1819 and 1820, partly by Sir 

 Stamford assisted by Dr. Joseph Arnold, and partly by Messrs. Diard and Duvaucel. These two 

 gentlemen (the first a pupil, the other the step-son of the great Cuvier) were French naturalists, 

 whose services Sir Stamford had secured while on a visit to Bengal. The unfortunate mis- 

 Ibis, 1877, understanding that soon after their arrival in Sumatra occurred between the Lieutenant-Governor 

 P' and these two Frenchmen led, in about twelve months, to a cessation of their labours and to their 



departure from Bencoolen ; and Sir Stamford was obliged to undertake the description of the 

 materials collected himself, or to allow the results to be published in France. Hence his papers 

 in the ' Liunean Transactions'!. The number of species therein catalogued and more or less 

 described is about 1G8. But some birds obtained in the Prince-of- Wales Island and Singapore 

 are included ; and a few species, such as Psittacus ornatus and P. sumatranus, appear to have 

 been introduced into the list through oversight and on the strength of caged birds. 



In 1830 Lady Eaffles published a memoir J of her late husband, to which was appended a 

 catalogue, by Vigors, of the zoological specimens collected in Sumatra under the superintendence 

 of Sir S. Raffles, and by Dr. Horsfield of those in Java. About 194 specimens from Sumatra are 

 enumerated, that locality being stated in each instance ; and some species additional to Sir 

 Stamford's list are discriminated and described as new by Vigors. This catalogue would have 

 been more useful had its author identified all the species on which Sir Stamford had previously 

 bestowed new titles, and had the invalid titles been reduced to synonyms — a work, however, 

 subsequently accomplished in the most thorough manner by Mr. F. Moore §. 



Since 18-30 no attempt at a complete account of the birds of Sumatra has been published ; 

 but a good many species not contained in Vigors's list have been discovered and described, 

 principally by the Dutch zoologists, more particularly by Temminck || and by Salomon Miiller ^. 



Ibis, 1877, Mr. "Wallace, during a stay of about three months, collected some birds in the district of 

 p. 285. 



* Tr. L. S. xiii. pp. 277, .3-30 ; Appendix, pp. 339, 340 (dated June 1, 1820; read Marcb 20, 1821). The date of 

 the volume is 1822. 



t The collection of birds was sent to the E.I. C. lluseum in Loudou in 1820, and of drawings in 1S21. 



X Jlemoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Stamford Eaffles, bj- his Widow (1830)-; Cat. Zool. Specimens, Aves, 

 pp. G48, 687. 



§ A Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum of the Hon. E.I. Company, in two vols. : vol. i. (18.54), vol. ii. (1856-58). 



|] Nouveau RecueU de I'lanchcs Coloriees d'Oiscaux, in five volumes. Date of completed work 1838. 



1[ Tijdschrift voor Xaturlijke Geschiedcnis en Physiologic, ii. pp. 315, 354 (1S35). Verhandclingen over do Xatuur- 

 lijke Geschiedcnis dcr Xcderlandschc overzccsche bezittingen : Land- en Volkeukuude (183!)-44) ; Zoologie (183U-44). 



