ON A COLLECTION OF BIRDS FROM THE SIAMESE 
PROVINCE OF BANDON, N.E. MALAY PENINSULA. 
By H. C. ROBINSON, c.M.z.s., M.B.0.U. 
Jak province of Bandon, with which the present paper is concerned, 
is situated on the eastern side of the Malay Peninsula, between 
long. 98° 30’ and 99° 40’ E., and lat. 9° 10’ and 8° 30’ N. It is 
bounded on the south and east by the province of Nakon Sitamarat, 
on the west by Takopah and on the north by Chaiya. As yet it 
is comparatively little developed though the Siamese Bangkok- 
Singapore Railway, which traverses its eastern districts, will do much 
to remedy this. At present its principal production is timber, of 
which large quantities are cut in the forests to the west of the province, 
floated down the Bandon river, which is one of the most navigable in 
the Malay Peninsula, and dealt with by a large and well equipped saw 
mill at Bandon town, the cut timber being mainly utilized at Bangkok 
but exported also to Kelantan, Trengganu and Singapore and éven to 
Europe. A little tin is also produced and a small amount of wolfram 
from a mine on the coast, but the mineral output is as yet insignificant. 
The population is exclusively Siamese or at least Siamese speaking, 
though on the coast there is a slight admixture of Malay blood which 
is more pronounced on the coast of Chaiya, to the north among the 
fishing population. 
The coast, except on the south-east where it is rocky with a 
sandy beach, is low and mangrove grown, succeeded towards the 
interior by a belt of sandy barren land overgrown in places by 
Melastoma scrub and in others by stretches of gelam (Melaleuca 
leucodendron). 
At the base of the hills stretches a large area of very fertile land 
occupied by villages and rice fields but the province, as a whole, is 
stated to be sparsely inhabited as compared with its southern 
neighbour Nakon Sitamarat. Roads are as yet in a backward con- 
dition, but their lack is in large part supplied by the Bandon river, 
which except in the dry season is navigable for steam launches for 
nearly a hundred miles from its mouth, which unfortunately is blocked 
by a very broad and very shallow bar, not carrying more than six or 
seven feet of water at any tide. 
The only considerable town is Bandon, about three or four miles 
from the mouth of the river, a thriving little place of apparently 
-about six or seven thousand inhabitants with a large number of 
Siamese and Chinese shops, a detachment of the provincial gendarmerie 
- and a considerable number of officials. 
Oct,, 1914, 
