176 A LIST OF THE BIRDS OF PEGU. 
the rains. The floods, however, are not as arule of sucha 
nature as to prevent cultivation, and vast portions of the plain 
are yearly planted with rice. 
The rainfall varies from about 40 inches at the frontier to 130 
inches at Pegu. This variation has, however, less to do with the 
distribution of birds than might be expected. Many species, 
which a few years ago were thought to be exclusively 
confined to the drier portions of Pegu, are now known to be 
very abundant further south in the same province, extending 
even into Tenasserim where the rainfall is excessive. 
The materials for this paper have been furnished by large 
collections made by myself in almost every portion of the 
area comprised under the general name of the province of 
Pegu. For many years I collected at or near the town of 
Pegu, a small place about 60 miles north-east of Rangoon. 
Near Pegu is the small village of Kyeikpadein on the banks of 
the canal which I was constructing, and here most of the 
rarer, and more interesting, species of reed birds and aquatic 
birds were procured. 
The tract of country dealt with by Dr. Armstrong has not 
been explored by me except in a hurried manner, and con- 
sequently his investigations have enabled me to define the 
distribution of many species with greater exactness. In the 
following paper about twenty species are inserted on_ bis 
authority, which would otherwise have been omitted. 
Of the species inserted by Mr. Hume in his list of the birds 
of Upper Pegu I have now omitted the following five :— 
Anthocincla phayrit. 
Phylloscopus affinis. 
65 indicus. 
Passer assimilis. 
Gallinago gallinula.* 
1 am not satisfied that any of these birds have occurred 
within the limits as above defined. 
The occurrence of the following birds requires confirmation. 
They are recorded by Blyth in his * Birds of Burma” 
as having been received from Pegu. They have not again 
been discovered in Pegu since his time, and it is probable that 
they do not occur in Pegu as defined in this paper.f They 
are six :— 
Circus cineraceus. Rhyacornis fuliginosus. 
Volvocivora sykest. Allotrius melanotis. 
Chatarrhea caudata. Lobipluvia malabarica. 
* But this certainly occurs in Pegu, as I have had a specimen from near the mouth 
of the Bassein river.—Ep., 8. F 
+ I also omitted all these from the Pegu paper, Vol III, for the same reason, 
but I was wrong about the last, which must be admitted—Ep., & F. 
