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Hotes on some Birds collected in the Eastern or Aangeon 
District of the arrawaddy Aelta. 
By JAMES ARMSTRONG, B.A., M.B., &c. 
From the latter end of November until the beginning of 
March, my duties, as officer in medical charge of the Marine 
Survey of India, enabled me to devote a portion of my time to 
the study of the avi-fauna belonging to the Rangoon district of 
the Irrawaddy delta. During this period, so far as I was able, 
I have made short notes upon the habits of the birds collected, 
and have carefully recorded in the flesh the different dimensions 
of each species met with, in the hope of being able to add some- 
thing to the general store of ornithological facts. 
Before giving a detailed account of the difterent species found 
to frequent this district, I shall first endeavour to convey a 
rough idea of the region in which they were collected. 
By reference to the map it will be seen that the Rangoon 
river, after its junction with the Pegu, forms the eastern bound- 
ary of the Irrawaddy delta, and that at some distance to the 
westward a second large stream pours out its waters into the 
Gulf of Martaban. This stream is called the China-Ba-keer 
river, and has for a considerable portion of its terminal length a 
direction more or less parallel with the Rangoon river, with 
which it is connected at irregular intervals by several large 
channels or creeks, extremely tortuous in their course, and all 
mainly depending for their depth of water upon the condition of 
the tides. 
Between the mouths of the Rangoon and China-Ba-keer rivers, 
is enclosed a district of about five and twenty miles in extent, 
of which the main feature is its perfect flatness, without the 
slightest hill or smallest elevation to be seen on any side. Yet, 
notwithstanding its uniformity in this respect, it possesses a great 
diversity in the character and amount of its vegetation. Swamps 
and jheels, open waste ground and ploughed lands, forest coun- 
try aad thin tree jungle, are all to be met with. 
Throughout this region the great majority of the collection, 
which forms the subject of the following notes, was made. Some 
few specimens were also collected from the immediate vicinity of 
Rangoon, and others from the region about Eastern Grove, 
which forms the eastern boundary of the Rangoon river near 
its mouth. Several birds were also obtained from the neigh- 
bourhood of Syriam, a small town and district situated near the 
eastern bank of the Rangoon river, close to its junction with 
the Pegu. 
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