38 A FIRST TENTATIVE LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE 



of the Peninsula, and of these several, I am inclined to believe 

 never do occur there. 



From time to time I have had parties down there collecting-, 

 chiefly towards the extreme south, and have had all the Malaccan 

 collections overhauled, but even after thus collecting many- 

 thousand specimens, I found that I could not count four 

 hundred species, and that I was still quite ignorant of the 

 limits of distribution of most of them, and so I determined 

 to give up desultory raids, and, instead, work thoroughly and 

 systematically the western half of the Peninsula. 



Accordingly my whole staff — two European and eight native 

 collectors — have been located in four suitable working stations, 

 (where of course each party gets what local assistance it can) 

 which with their environs they will work exhaustively. They 

 will then take up four new stations — and so on. Considering 

 that Malacca and its immediate neighbourhood has been watched 

 for us for several years, we having been through probably over 

 30,000 birds prepared there, that Davison has already pretty 

 exhaustively worked Johore, and that a friend has been working 

 Singapore for us, I appi-ehend that eight judiciously chosen 

 stations in the plains and four in the hills will suffice to give 

 us a very fair idea of the birds of the western half of the 

 Malay Peninsula, where I hope myself to spend a few months 

 during next cool season. 



In a couple of years, then, I may hope to present a rough 

 resume of the birds of this region similar to that lately fur- 

 nished for Tenasserim. 



In the meantime I shall publish, from time to time, notes 

 on species possessing any special interest, and an ad-interim 

 tentative list of species at present known or recorded from 

 this tract, and I shall be deeply grateful for any references to 

 papers and works, other than those above enumerated, dealing 

 •with the subject, as also for information as to species omitted 

 from my list. 



One very interesting result of our investigations, so far as 

 they have yet gone, is the discovery in the Malayan Peninsula 

 of the previously unknown species to which Mr. Gray bestowed 

 the name of Turdus avensis on the faith of a native drawing. 



This bird is figured and described at page 530 of Griffith's 

 Translation of Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, Vol. VI, part Aves, 

 J. E. Gray, 1829. 



The figure is not a very bad one, and can be certainly identi- 

 fied as our bird. The description runs as follows : — 



" The Ava Thrush, so named by Mr. Gray, is from 

 Mr. Crawfurd's collection of Indian drawings. It may, probably, 



