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8 INTRODUCTION. 



visit this dangerous and unknown region, when, as an ornithological result, it will doubtless be 

 discovered that many species inhabiting the Eastern Himalayas and the hills of Burmah and Tenasserim 

 extend their range to the mountains of Java and Sumatra along the elevated ridge which forms 

 the backbone of the Malayan peninsula. 



For our knowledge of the ornithology of Sumatra we are still mainly dependent upon the collections 

 of the old Dutch travellers, Solomon Muller and others, who penetrated the mountain-ranges of 

 the island; if we except the successful expedition made by Dr. Beccari in 1878, and the more 

 recent researches of Mr. H. O. Forbes, lately recorded by Mr. F. Nicholson. The collections made 

 near the coast, such as those of fche late Mr. E. C. Buxton in Lampong, mainly resulted in the 

 procuring of common Malayan and Bornean forms. 



But little has been written on the ornithology of Java. Horsfield's list of the birds procured 

 by him, and subsequent observations by Dr. Bernstein, Mr. H. O. Forbes, and Mr. Vordeman 

 comprise nearly all we know of the ornithology of the island ; but rich collections are contained in 

 the Leiden Museum, and the British Museum likewise possesses a good series prepared by Mr. Wallace, 

 and by no means the least valuable result of that naturalist's expedition to the East. 



With the ornithology of Borneo we are much better acquainted, thanks to the excellent work 

 of Count Salvadori, the ' Uccelli di Borneo,' which contains a complete record of the avifauna of 

 the island up to the year 1874. Since that date Mr. Alfred Everett and his brother Mr. Henry 

 Everett in Sarawak, Mr. Hugh Low and the late Governor Ussher in Labuan and the provinces 

 of Brunei and Lumbidan, and Mr. W. B. Pryer in Sandakan, have added greatly to our knowledge 

 of the birds of Borneo, and have shown that the relations of its avifauna are mostly with that of 

 Sumatra and the Malayan peninsula, that few forms are peculiar to the island, and that it receives a 

 considerable migratory influx of Siberian and Eastern Asiatic forms which make Borneo their winter 

 home. 



Our knowledge of the avifauna of the Philippine Islands has also been vastly increased since Mr. 

 Gould commenced the present work. Many species had been recorded by Sonnerat and the older 

 writers; but their accounts were often confused and meagre, and it was not till the late Mr. 

 Cuming had visited the archipelago that British ornithologists received any definite and trustworthy 

 information respecting the birds of the Philippine Islands. The Prussian expedition to Eastern Asia 



