1918. | H. C. Ropinson & C. B. Kross: Burds. 261 
APPENDIX. 
A NOMINAL LIST OF THE SPECIES OF BIRDS CERTAINLY 
KNOWN TO OCCUR IN SUMATRA. 
Only two lists of the Rirds of Sumatra have hitherto 
appeared. Of the first, by H. O. Fores, published in an 
appendix to his book ‘‘A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the 
Eastern Archipelago,” (London, 1885), pp. 268-274, little need 
be said. It is avowedly a compilation bearing marks of haste 
in its preparation and in view of the fact that the ‘‘ Catalogue 
of Birds” was then in its infancy, was necessarily based on 
extremely incomplete data. It contains 325 names. 
The second, by A. G. VoRDERMAN, entitled “Les 
Oiseaux de Sumatra et leur présence dans les iles avoisantes,”’ 
contained in the Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch- 
Indie, vol. xlix, pp. 382-442 (Batavia, 1890), is in every way a 
better and more comprehensive list, containing about 497 
species certainly recognized, besides a very large number that 
are presumed by the author to occur. * It is, however, marred 
by the fact that a large number of Javan species are included 
on insufficient evidence and by the lack of critical examination 
of the species, many purely nominal forms being accepted 
which are absolute pure synonyms of others already in the 
list. 
For the sake of uniformity with similar compilations of 
the birds of neighbouring countries, we have, in the present 
list, adopted the arrangement followed in ‘fA Hand-list of the 
Genera and Species of Birds, Vols. I-V, London, 1899-1912,” 
though this is in many ways an inconvenient and extremely 
artificial one, based on a strictly binomial nomenclature. 
Certain apparent inconsistencies should be explained. 
Where species undoubtedly stand in subspecific relationship 
to forms from other countries! the fact is so indicated by the 
use of trinomials, though where binomials are used it must 
not be considered that the species so indicated are specially 
distinct but that they are either the forma typica of the species 
or belong to genera which have not yet been monographically 
dealt with, so that the use of trinomials in their case would, 
in the present state of our knowledge, merely confuse the 
student of Oriental Ornithology. 
As regards nomenclature we have, for the most part, 
followed the laws of priority, but in certain cases where the 
use of these has involved the adoption of false concords or the 
perpetuation of obvious misprints or lapsus calaimt, the dictates 
of commonsense have been consulted. 
1 ‘‘A Hand-list of the Birds of the Malay Peninsula, South of the Isthmus 
of Kra,’’ by H. C. Robinson, pp. 1-22, Kuala Lumpur, 1910, ‘‘ Hand List of 
the Birds of Borneo,’’ by J. C. Moulton, Journal, Straits Branch, Roy. Asiatic 
Society, No. 67, pp. 126-191, Singapore, 1914 
Part II: Vertebrata. 24 
