996 NOTES ON SOME BIRDS COLLECTED IN THE EASTERN OR 
In the Syriam district alone there are a few slight hills and 
rising erounds, the highest attaining an elevation above the sur- 
rounding level of perhaps 150 or 180 feet. These hills are, for 
the most part, clothed with forest trees, consisting chiefly of 
various species of figs and acacias, which furnish an abundant 
supply of food to the numerous birds which frequent them. 
Several species of Squirrels, too,are to be met with: Scurus 
Phayrei, Blyth, Sciurus ferrugineus, Cuv., and Seiurus chrysono- 
tus, Blyth, all occur here in tolerable abundance. 
It only remains now to say a few words upon the zoology 
and physical features of the country which intervenes between 
Elephant Point at the mouth of the Rangoon river, aud the vil- 
lage of China-Ba-keer, similarly situated with regard to the river 
of the same name. 
The marine zoology of this district is extremely small and 
scanty. ‘The great rapidity of the tides, the brackishness of the 
water, and the immense amount of mud and fine sand, which is 
held in suspension by the water, and is constantly being depo- 
sited by subsidence on the bottom, are the factors which most 
powerfully co-operate to prevent the development and retard the 
growth of the marine fauna in this locality. 
The littoral fauna, on the contrary, isabundant. Along the 
entire length of the coast line, between Klephant Point and China- 
Ba-keer, there are immense mud flats, varying from half to 
three or four miles in width, which at low tides are left uncover- 
ed, and swarm with different kinds of crabs and small mud- 
fishes. These banks afford rare feeding-grounds to multitudes 
of Stints, Plovers, Herons, and other shore birds, which congre- 
gate upon them. 
Fringing this long stretch of mud (which, by the way, is 
very soft, and without some special contrivance impossible to 
traverse) is a very gently sloping beach, varying in width from 
fifty to several hundred yards, and entirely composed of fine 
white sand. This zone of sand swarms with a crimson stalk- 
eyed crab, Ocypode platytarsis, which exists in such numbers at 
certain points, as to give the beach the appearance of an extend- 
ed surface of crimson. As one approaches this crimson expanse, 
a very curious effect is produced by the sudden disappearance of 
the color along the margin, caused by the instantaneous with- 
drawal of the crabs into the holes, which they burrow for them- 
selves in the sand, and from which they never appear to 
wander for more than a few feet. 
At intervals along the shore the continuity of this sandy 
beach is interrupted by mangrove swamps, which sometimes ex- 
tend out to a considerable distance into the mud, and are always 
completely covered at high water. A few miles distant from 
