136 



DR. JOHN ANDERSON ON BTRDS 



List of Birds, chiefly from the Mergui Archipelago, collected 

 for the Trustees of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. By John 

 Anderson, M.D., LL.D., F.K.S., F.L.S. 



[Read 17th June, 1886.] 



The following list of Birds chiefly records the distribution, in 

 some of the more outlying islands of the Mergui Archipelago, of 

 a few of the species enumerated by Messrs. Hume and Davison 

 from the neighbouring mainland of Tenasserim. 



It appears from the list of localities appended to the ' Birds of 

 Tenasserim,' and from the text of the work itself, that Mr. Davi- 

 son's researches in the Archipelago were confined to the islands 

 of Kolan and Patoe (Pataw), and to some of the small islands in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of Mergui ; and it is stated that 

 the island of Kolan* is 25 miles south of Mergui, whilst Patoe 

 or Patoi is described as " forming as it were the S.W. pier of 

 Mergui harbour." On the other hand, Mr. Davison made a pre- 

 liminary reconnaissance of the avifauna of that enormous and 

 difficult tract of country known as the province of Tenasserim, 

 which extends from the Pah-choung in the north to the Pakchan 

 in the south, an area 625 miles in length and over 70 miles in 

 breadtht. 



The following list is therefore published merely as a small 

 supplementary contribution, if I may be permitted so to call it, 

 to Mr. Davison's herculean labours in the Province ; seeing it 

 somewhat extends our knowledge of the distribution of some of 

 the species in the northern portion of the Archipelago, a region 

 to which his labours were very partially directed. 



The islands to which my attention was chiefly confined were 

 King Island, Elphinstone Island, and Sullivan Island. In the 

 first 37 days, in the second 14 days, and in the third 9 days were 

 all I could devote to bird-collecting. In King Island and Elphin- 

 stone Island I had to entrust the work to a Karen, as the other 

 numerous duties to which I had to attend fnlly occupied my time, 

 and because the Museum collectors I had brought with me from 



* in the chart of the northern part of Hie Mergui Archipelago, published in 

 1875 by the Hydrographic Office of Hie Admiralty, the only island called Kolan 

 liei 6 miles directly to the west of the town of Mergui ; whilo in the map of the 

 sout hern portion of the Archipelago no island of that name is to bo found ; but 

 there are in both charts many unnamed islands. 



f 'Stray Feathers,' vol. vi. p. ii. 



