INTRODUCTION. 9 



resulted in the publication of a list of Philippine birds by Dr. von Martens, which, however, was 

 not very satisfactory; but the explorations of Dr. A. B. Meyer were of more enduring importance, 

 as it was principally on his collections that the excellent memoir on the Birds of the Philippine 

 Archipelago by the Marquis of Tweeddale was founded. Following closely upon this, we ourselves 

 published a list of the birds obtained by Dr. Steere, who visited many of the islands on which no 

 naturalist had before set foot, and whose collections contained a large number of new forms. Perhaps 

 the most interesting result of Dr. Steere's expedition was the demonstration that the Philippine Island 

 of Palawan possessed a distinct Bornean and, therefore, Malayan element — a result which has been 

 amply confirmed by Mr. Alfred Everett in the same island. The latter naturalist was sent by Lord 

 Tweeddale; and his expedition has proved to be one of the most important ever undertaken in the 

 Indian region. Like Dr. Steere he also visited many islands not before trodden by an ornithologist, 

 and obtained a large number of beautiful novelties. 



Such is a brief retrospect, as far as our experience allows us to make it, of the progress of oriental 

 ornithology since the year 1850, when Mr. Gould issued his first part. Every one must admit that 

 it would be far easier now to attempt such a work, although so vast is the extent of the Indian 

 region that each year records a large increase in our knowledge of Asiatic birds. It would almost seem 

 as if we had now once more reached a period of quiescence, such as supervened upon the publication 

 of Horsfield and Moore's ' Catalogue/ and Jerdon's ' Birds of India.' Let us hope that this is not 

 the case, and that Mr. Hume, who has done so much for the increase of our knowledge of Indian 

 birds, will not allow his pen to remain dry, that Colonel Godwin-Austen will, on the termination of 

 his present important work on Mollusca, be induced to give us a connected catalogue of the birds 

 of North-eastern Bengal, that Captain Wardlaw Ramsay will publish a catalogue of the Tweeddale 

 collection, and that Mr. Blanford will not allow his retirement from India to interfere with the 

 publication of his useful works on the zoology of that portion of the globe. 



R. BOWDLER SHARPE. 





