11. A List of the Birds known to inhabit the Philippine Archipelago. By Artur, 
Viscount WaLDEN, F.2.S., President of the Society. 
Read June 3rd, 1873. 
[Puates XXIII.-XXXIV.] 
IN the month of December 1871 and the first three months of the following year some 
of the principal islands of the Philippine archipelago were visited by Dr. A. Bernhard 
Meyer, the well-known German naturalist. During that short period this indefatigable 
collector obtained a large series of ornithological specimens, representing ninety-six 
species. ‘The islands visited by him were Luzon, Negros, Zebu, Cuyo, and Guimaras, 
the last being a small island adjoining the southern coast of Panay, and lying in the 
channel which separates Panay from Negros. Hitherto most of the authentic so-called 
Philippine specimens of birds contained in European collections have been procured in 
Luzon, collected at no very great distance from the town of Manilla, its capital; and 
nearly all the zoological travellers who have visited the Philippines have confined their 
researches to the vicinity of that town. It follows, consequently, that “the Philippines,” 
so frequently occurring as a geographical expression in our lists, from the days of Brisson 
to the recent date of Mr. G. R. Gray’s ‘ Hand-list,’ must be taken to mean the country 
adjacent to the town of Manilla. To this rule Sonnerat is an exception. 
After residing at Manilla, and forming collections in the interior of Luzon, Sonnerat 
visited Antigua, the capital of the island of Panay, and then Zamboanga the chief 
Spanish settlement in the large island of Mindanao. Panay does not seem to have been 
revisited by any ornithologist’; but in 1839, D’Urville’s second expedition in the 
‘ Astrolabe’ remained two months at Zamboanga, and obtained a few zoological 
specimens, 
It is possible that the late Mr. Hugh Cuming may have visited all these localities 
and many others during his long residence in the Philippines; but as his large 
collection of birds was broken up without being catalogued, and as they were brought 
to Europe at a time when geographical distribution attracted less attention than now, 
we possess no published record of the exact localities where his specimens were obtained *. 
After Sonnerat fifty-eight years appear to have elapsed before the Philippines were 
1 At least there does not appear to be any published record of Panay haying been again visited, although 
Mr. Cassin (U.S. Expl. Exped. p. 143) certainly enumerates an example of Irena cyanogastra as having been 
obtained in this island. : 
2 A large portion of his ornithological collection was made in the southern part of the island of Luzon (cf. 
P.Z.8. 1839, p. 93); but it has since become scattered, and the origin of many of the individual specimens 
cannot now be identified. 
VOL, IX.—PaRT I. April, 1875. 8 
