A REVISED LIST OF THE BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. V 



any observation they make as to the occurrence in any locality 

 of any species will be of use in working- out the distribution. 



A few words of explanation as to the terms I have used in 

 defining so far as it is known to me, the area of distribution of 

 each species may here be useful. 



By Tenasserim proper I, intend to signify that portion of 

 the province which was included within its limits when we 

 commenced work, and to exclude Tonghoo, Karendoo and Karen- 

 nee. 



When I talk of the northern, and southern halves of the 

 province, I understand the latitude of Moulmein to be about 

 the line of division. 



When I allude to northern, central and southern portions of 

 Tenasserim, I consider the central portion to commence about 

 or a little north of the 17° N. L. and to extend southwards 

 to or nearly to the 13° N. L. I cannot here attempt any 

 generalizations, the prime object of this paper being to elicit 

 information on which such can be securely based, but I 

 may remark that this latter boundary seems to be a true 

 zoological one, and that a vast number of Malayan species, both 

 birds and mammals, seem to extend northwards to about the 

 13° N. L., i.e., the latitude of the head of the Gulf of Siam, 

 and no further. 



Moolyit, the only mountain of 6,000 feet and upwards that 

 we have yet examined, will often be mentioned, and it may 

 seem at first sight almost to have an avifauna of its own. 



But in the first place we have not yet explored, in fact nobody 

 has, the (it is said) equally high or higher hills belonging to the 

 same range further south in the latitude of Tenasserim town. 



In the second place Moolyit, it will be borne in mind, be- 

 longs to a range that almost immediately north of this peak, 

 runs outside our territory, and this will explain the apparent 

 anomaly of many species occurring in Tonghoo or Karennee, 

 and nowhere in the intervening 200 to 250 miles of country 

 till Moolyit is reached. There is probably no real break, but 

 the range by which all these species travel southwards to Mooly- 

 it lies outside our territory between this latter and Karennee, 

 though some of its spurs come down near to Kyouk-nyat, which 

 again accounts for isolated specimens of some of these species 

 turning up in that neighbourhood. 



Many of these species very probably also occur further south 

 on the highest (and as yet entirely unknown) portions of this 

 same range, and possibly in some of the higher hills in the in- 

 termediate ranges. 



What is at present specially perplexing in Tenasserim is, that 

 besides its main range, the back-bone of the Malay Peninsula, 

 it includes one, two, or three, more or less parallel ones, between 



