16 A FIRST LIST OF THE 



811 ter— Euplocamus lineatus, Lath. 

 824 quat.— Arborophila brunneopectus, Tick. 

 824 quint.— Peloperdix chloropus, Tick. 

 855 bis.— Lobivanellus atronuchalis, Blyth. 



Although some differences of opinion may exist as to my 

 assignments, and some of my readers may probably consider 

 that a few of the birds should be otherwise placed, still I do not 

 think that these minor changes will in any way affect the main 

 conclusions to which the figures above given point. 



In this dry Upper Burmah the great bulk, or at any rate more 

 than two-thirds of the Ornis is Indian ; of the remaining third, 

 nearly one-half are peculiar to Burmah. Indo-Burmese forms, as 

 already defined, come next in importance ; while the Malayan and 

 Chinese forms, that extend thus far and no further, are com- 

 paratively few in number. 



Now, in the proportions that these elements of the Avi-fauna bear 

 to each other, the tract we are considering stands out very distinctly 

 from the adjoining regions. Whether you go east, south, or west, 

 you find a diminution relatively in the numbers of the purely Indian 

 and purely Burmese forms, and an increase in the Indo-Burmese 

 and, except in Arrakan, in the Indo-Malayan and Chinese forms, 

 the increase of the latter east of the Salween being most marked. 



Imperfectly as these various Burmese sub-regions, and more 

 especially Independent Burmah northwards of the tract we are 

 considering, have as yet been worked, it would be premature to 

 generalize too far ; but ever since I commenced the investigation 

 of this question, it has always seemed to me that this particular 

 sub-region with which we are dealing possesses a special interest, 

 as being probably, as it were, an outlying island, where the original 

 Indian Ornis has to a great extent maintained its position, while 

 the invading waves of the Indo-Burmese Avifauna passed round 

 it east and west, and meeting beyond it surged onwards to the 

 Himalayas, swept up their flanks, and rolled away west- 

 wards, flooding their lower valleys and the dhoons and terais that 

 skirt their bases, and eastwards up the valley of the Brahma- 

 pootra. No doubt some of the species, which have now so widely 

 established themselves throughout the country as to be accepted 

 as unquestionably Indian, did not pertain to what I may call the 

 aboriginal fauna, but belonged originally to the invading Ornis; 

 but making every possible deduction on this account, the pre- 

 ponderance of essentially Indian and western species in this small 

 sub-province, as compared with what is observable in Northern 

 Tenasserim, Southern Pegu, Arrakan, Tipperah, Cachar, Sylhet, 

 and Assam, so far as I have yet succeeded in registering the 

 birds of these, is very striking. 



