﻿THE BIRDS OF BOHOL. 



Bv Richard C. McGregor. 



INTRODUCTION-. 



Bohol Island, 1.441 square miles in area, is nearly circular in outline 

 and its coast is little broken by bays or inlets, but there are more than 

 60 small islands near it. mostly to the north and northwest. There 

 are no mountains in Bohol. hut sharpe ridges of old coral limestone are 

 found in the vicinity of Sevilla and Guindulman. On these ridges grows 

 the only forest in the .island. If any extensive forest ever existed on 

 level ground, it has long since been cut. I was told that in the interior 

 there are large areas of rolling land covered with tall cogon grass. 



The first list of Bohol birds is that published by Tweeddale 1 based 

 on the collections made by Mr. A. H. Everett and his brother. The 

 Everetts went to Talibon on the northern coast of Bohol and evidently 

 found no suitable collecting ground. Tweeddale says : 



"Mr. Everett stopped tor a week at Talibon. on the north coast of the island, 

 and then left for Palawan while his brother proceeded to the interior of the 

 island to collect. There he found a country covered with grass 12 feet high, and 

 with no forest except on the tops of a few hills. Birds were scarce : and he had 

 to return stricken with fever.'* 



The collection made by the Everetts contained examples of 47 specie-. 

 The next collectors to visit the island were members of the Steere Ex- 

 pedition, but they seem to have taken few birds. Worcester - states that 

 Steere and his collector. Mateo Francisco, went to Bohol for corals : the 

 14 species listed for "Bojol" by Steere" are common forms and 7 of 

 these were not contained in the Everett collection. 



In March. 1906, Messrs. ( "'elestino and Canton, assistants in the Bureau 

 <>f Science, were sent to Bohol and in May the author joined them at Tag- 

 liilaran. to find that valuable collections of birds had been made at 

 Corella, Sevilla. and Balilijan. where small patches of forest had been 

 found on steep coral rock hills. Collecting in the vicinity of Tagbilaran 

 being practically useless because of the total lack of forest, we moved 

 to Guindulman, where we found a small forested area on the top of a 

 limestone ridge. The species collected here were much the same as those 

 already obtained near Sevilla. but a number of important additions 

 were made to our list. 



l Proc. Zoo/. Nor-. I 1878 . 708-712. 



-The Philippine Islands and their people. Xew York i 1898), 303. 

 List Phil. Bds. Ann Arbor (1890), 5-37. 



315 



