SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I929 95 



Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and worked in the same .general 

 region as Doctor Smith. In response to an inquiry of mine, he has 

 kindly sent me the following notes on the country. 



" The whole of the part of northern Siam known as the Siamese 

 Laos country is composed of flat circular plains, each divided from the 

 other hy mountain ranges, rising generally to an altitude of ahout 

 4,0(X) feet. The highest peak in Siam is Doi Angka. 8,400 feet. 

 Streams are plentiful and lakes scarce. Bamhoo is plentiful along the 

 courses of these streams, and tall ' elephant grass ' grows in all the 

 abandoned clearings. Teak wood is abundant on the lower slopes of the 

 mountains. However, I have never seen many l)irds in the teak for- 

 ests. Trees (in the slopes of the mountains to about 1,500 feet are small 

 and the ground very dry and often stony. Above this the evergreen 

 belt occurs, large trees and heavy undergrowth, in which l)ird life is 

 most abundant. Hornbills, babblers, fairy bluebirds, nuthatches, 

 bulbuls, make their home here. White-handed gibbons {Ilylobafcs 

 lar) are extraordinarily ])lentiful. 



" This evergreen area reaches solidly to 4,000 feet where it gives 

 way to a more open forest, carpeted with grass about two feet high, 

 and the trees are smaller and covered with moss. Magnolias of the 

 genus MicJiclia are very common. Sunljirds (AclJiopyga) are always 

 to be seen in them. Pine forests begin at about 4,500 feet, but birds 

 seemed to be extremely rare in them. The only thing I recall ever hav- 

 ing seen there is a drongo (Chaplia) . Pheasants and partridges are 

 common and certain babblers (esi)ecially Sihiiiiac) are confined to 

 these top slopes." 



Doctor Smith explains that as he was traveling on official business 

 for the Siamese Government, his time for general collecting in the 

 mountains was not as nuich as he desired, especially on Doi Angka, 

 where he felt that he might have gotten birds new to his collection 

 every day for a month or more. It is to be hoped that he will be able 

 to make another and more ]~)rolonged stay there as his first visit re- 

 sulted in the discovery of several interesting birds new to science. 



On June 21 Doctor Smith writes that he plans another trip to the 

 north in November, this time to the Kuhn Tan Mountains and the 

 region north of Chiengmai. " Tomorrow I am going to Singora and 

 .... do some collecting .... in that part of the peninsula where 

 I, at least, have not collected birds." From a letter written on August 

 19 we learn that Doctor Smith's native collector had just returned 

 from, ". . . . a mountainous section northeast of Bangkok. He had 

 a narrow escape from a huge wild boar which charged him while he 

 was stalking some fire-back pheasants. The boar was not stopped by 



