Malayan Ornithology. 363 



relationship with that of China^ Borneo^ and the Eastern 

 Archipelago. 



My observations are confined entirely to the Indo-Malayan 

 division, and, though extending over a period of nearly three 

 years^ continuous and most essentially practical work, are 

 necessarily of a fragmentary and incomplete nature, as in a 

 country so rich in birds there must be many species of which 

 I know but little : several I never even saw. 



During a good deal of my time in the country I was 

 stationed with my regiment at Singapore, in itself by no 

 means a bad collecting-ground, while from it I made many 

 bird-hunting expeditions to the mainland, visiting Malacca, 

 Penang, Province Wellesley, Johore, the Moar river, and 

 many islands of the Singapore Archipelago, 



My first seven months were passed in the native States of 

 Perak and Larut ; and during that time I personally obtained 

 examples of over two hundred different species — though, if I 

 had but had an assistant to help in the skinning, I could have 

 collected many more. Often after a hard day's shooting I had 

 far more on hand than I could possibly manage, particularly in 

 that hot, damp climate, where, in spite of carbolic acid, 

 nothing would keep for any length of time. Nor must I 

 forget to mention those mortal enemies to the naturalist, the 

 ants ; for though I stood the legs of my tables in oil-jars, 

 hung my boxes to strings passed through bottles of water, 

 used any amount of camphor, and tried every ingenious 

 precaution that man could devise against their attacks, I 

 have to thank them for the loss of many a specimen. 



I found the oil-jar plan to answer best ; but as sure as a 

 straw, or even dust in any quantity, blew onto the oil, so 

 surely would the ants at once find out the bridge, cross it in 

 myriads, and in a few minutes one's cherished skins were a 

 moving mass of these pests. 



I have known them attack in thousands, and even eat 

 holes in the skin of, a sickly bird in my aviary some time 

 before it was actually dead ; and in this way, among other 

 specimens, I lost my only one of that cnj-ious pheasant-like 

 bird, Rhizothera longirostris, Temm. 



