A REVISED LIST OF THE BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. Ill 



heard of them,* have answered to some extent the same purpose 

 in the portions not visited by Davison. 



But general ideas are quite insufficient ; accurate and 

 detailed knowledge of distribution is essential, and the time 

 has clearly come when, if the work is really to be pushed to any 

 thing like a satisfactory result, more labourers are required 

 in Nature's vineyard. 



Mr. Davison has been fortunate enough in the course of 

 his explorations to enlist the sympathies of many in our work ; 

 untried hands for the most part, but willing to become tried 

 ones if only they can be put to a certain extent in the way of 

 knowing what is wanted, and enabled to identify the birds 

 they meet with and distinguish those in regard to which inform- 

 ation is more particularly required from those with which we 

 are comparatively well acquainted. 



This is my sole, and I submit not insufficient, excuse for pub- 

 lishing the fragmentary list, which is all that I can yet offer of 

 the birds of Tenasserim. 



At present, something like 150 of those species, in regard 

 to which further information is most to be desired, are as it 

 were beyond the possible ken of our w T ould-be co-operators. 



They are not included in Jerdon, neither have they been de- 

 scribed in Stray Feathers. The only descriptions of them, too 

 often meagre and unsatisfactory ones, are scattered through 

 old volumes of the J. A. S. B. (long since out of print), the 

 huge series of the P. Z. S., the Revue. Zool. and Rev. et Mag. 

 de Zool., and innumerable other works, all equally and utterly 

 inaccessible to the sportsman with ornithological predelictions 

 posted in the backwoods of British Burmah. 



The first object, therefore, of this present paper is, while 

 furnishing as complete a list as possible of all the birds known 

 or asserted to have occurred in the province, to provide in the 

 case of each species not described in Jerdon's " Birds of India," 

 either a full description or a reference to some previous passage 

 in Stray Feathers where this already occurs. 



But having placed our friends in a position to identify their 

 specimens, it yet remains to show them the kind of locality, 

 so far as we know, in which the several species are to be looked 

 for; which are rare, which common, what we know (little though 

 it be), about their distribution, and to give some idea of what 

 we believe to be their habits. 



The second object of the paper is to meet these require- 

 ments. 



* Since this was written I have had to thank Lieutenant Ramsay for a copy of a valu- 

 able paper which he has lately published, which I have repeatedly quoted further on. 



