STRAY FEATHERS. 



Vol. VI.3 JUNE 1878. [Nos. 1-6. 



% ftfeeb fist* of tie §irtis of tasserim. 



By A. 0. Hume & W. DAVisoN.t 



No one can be more alive than myself to the painfully imper- 

 fect character of this paper. It is in fact merely a series of 

 fragments, intended, when pieced together with others unfortu- 

 nately not yet available, to have formed the groundwork of an 

 account of the birds of Tenasserim. 



Nevertheless, the progress of our work necessitates its publica- 

 tion in its at-present unavoidably inchoate condition. 



More than four years ago I deputed my friend Mr. Davison 

 with a small staff which, under his able management, has yearly 

 increased in numbers and efficiency to explore Tenasserim orni- 

 thologically, at that time certainly the least known of the 

 provinces of the empire so far as its avifauna was concerned. 



* For previous lists, see S. F., II., 467; III., 317 ; IV., 223. 



+ Although I have written the whole of this tedious paper, and am solely responsible 

 for all its shortcomings, I consider that my friend Mr. Davison is really the author 

 of its most valuable portions. In the first place he and his staff collected nearly 

 19-20ths of the specimens on which it is based. In the second place it was lie who 

 recorded most industriously the great mass of the measurements in the flesh, and the 

 colours of the soft parts which are so often referred to. I find that he himself did 

 this in the case of more than 1,300 specimens. Those and those only who have 

 collected personally on a large scale in a warm climate, and in wild, out-of-the-way 

 localities, where none of the commonest necessaries of European life are available, can 

 appreciate the perseverance and endurance that the prompt and punctual record of 

 such particulars involves in the case of a man who has been already fagging through 

 the jungle for 8 or 10 hours, and may have to sit up half the night to get the bodies 

 out of his specimens before they become putrid. In the third place the entire sub- 

 stance of what I consider the most valuable portions of the paper, those that relate to 

 the habits of the several species, and that! have placed in brackets with his initials 

 appended, is solely and entirely his, the result of four years of intelligent and un- 

 wearied observation. 



It is a real misfortune that he so much prefers his gun to his pen, and that we have 

 been unable to be longer together. I do not pretend to have extracted half the in- 

 formation he possesses. I scarcely ever mention a bird to him without hearing some- 

 thing new about it, but at any rate I have succeeded in getting placed on record a 

 great deal that is entirely new in regard to numbers of species, which scarcely a single 

 other competent observer has ever watched alive and in a wild state, and whatever he 

 may say he is clearly entitled to be considered, at least joint-author of the paper in 

 which his experiences are recorded. 



