280 A Contribution to Malayan Ornithology. [No. 4, 



it is not difficult to consider the local races as specifically distinct. In 

 this way a bird in India is sometimes made the type of one species, 

 the same slightly varying in Burma the type of another, a third 

 one in the Malay Peninsula, and a fourth one often in Java and 

 the other islands. Such artificial specific distinctions may look very 

 well in a Catalogue of birds, or on the labels in a museum, where 

 perhaps one or two specimens from distant localities are considered 

 to indicate an unusual richness of the collection, but they are far 

 from sufficient to illustrate the fauna of a province, and those so- 

 called species often have no existence in nature. I shall relate 

 some instances of this kind, and indicate others, though, na- 

 turally, my present materials are very limited, but I believe 

 that in many cases the gradual change from one form to the 

 other will be satisfactorily proved, as soon as we become pro- 

 perly acquainted with the fauna of the intervening districts. In 

 any case the one general fact that the original and prevalent 

 character of the fauna of Eastern and South-Eastern British India 

 is very closely allied to that of the southern Malay countries, where- 

 from the fauna appears to have migrated to north and north-west, 

 should not be lost sight of by any one desiring to multiply the exist- 

 ing number of known species from those regions. 



Considerably different is the fauna of Southern and South- Wes- 

 tern India, which is known to possess in part a strong African 

 admixture. The only exception to this partially forms the fauna 

 of some of the elevated districts of Southern India and of the 

 Malabar coast. This latter again shews affinities to the eastern 

 Malay fauna, and the question how that isolated Malay fauna 

 came into existence, becomes of equally high interest as the one 

 is with regard to the admixture of African element into the rest of 

 the Indian fauna. Was the fauna of the whole of India at one time 

 Malayan ? Was it partially destroyed, or was its development other- 

 wise arrested through some past geological catastrophe, such as that 

 appears to be which must have affected India during the so-called 

 trappean deposits, extending over the greater part of Central and 

 Southern India ? Certainly these enormous volcanic operations must 

 have had great effect upon the fauna, as well as the flora. After, or 

 in relation with these catastrophes, the presumed connection of India 



