296 Lord Walden on a Collection of Birds 



XXXVI. — On a Collection of Birds recently made by Lieute- 

 nant Robert Wardlaw Ramsay, F.Z.S., in the Andaman 

 Islands. By Arthur, Viscount Walden, P.Z.S., F.R.S. 



(Plates XL, XII., XIII.) 



A young member of the B. O. U., Lieutenant R. W. 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 speci- 

 mens 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 ornitho- 

 logy of the Andamans. But in February last, Mr. V. Ball* 

 followed up two former and less complete papers on that sub- 

 ject by publishing an admirable list of the birds known to 

 occur in the Andamans and Nicobars, every species hitherto 

 noted as inhabitants of these two insular groups being in- 

 cluded. This list makes the total number recorded amount 

 to 133; from which 24 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. Humef after Mr. BalTs paper was in 

 print, thus raising the total to 113, less 5, which are not in- 

 digenous, having been introduced by Colonel Tytler. Mr. 

 Ramsay obtained two species, new to the Andaman fauna, 

 which when added make the complete numbers of known 

 Andaman birds at this date reach to about 110 species. 



The avifauna of the Andamans, while containing some pe- 

 culiar species, appears to resemble in character that of the 



* Str. Feath. i. p. 51. f Op. at. p. 304. 



