268 A NATURALISrS WANDESINOS 



ri.-LLST OF THE BIRDS OF SUMATRA. 



" The first systematic account of the avi-fanna ftf Samatra " (I quote 

 from the late Lord Tweedikle's valuable paper, On a collection of bir<is 

 made in the Lampongs in 1876 by Mr. E. C. Burton, in the lim for 1877, 

 pof^G 288) "waa written by Sir Stamford Raffles at Fort Marllwrough, 

 noar Bencoolen, , , Most of the birds enumeratwi were obtained in the 

 vicinity of Boncooleii itself, or during short trips into the interior of 

 the disitrict of that name, during the years 1819 and 1820, ]Tartly by 

 Sir Stamford, n-ssisted by Dr. Josepli Arnold, and partly by Messrs. 

 DIard and Dnvancel. These two gentlemen were French naturalists, 

 whoso services Sir Stamford had secnred while on a visit to Bengal. An 

 unfortunate misunderstanding that soon after their arrival in Sumatra 

 occurred between the Lieutenant-Governor and these two Frenchmen, 

 led, in al>ont twelve montlis, to a ees.'^aiiou of their laliourK, and to their 

 departure from Bencoolen; and Sir Stamford was obliged to undertake 

 the description of the materials collected himself, or to allow the results 

 to be published in France. Hence his ijajxirs in the ' Linnean Trans- 

 actions/ The nnml)er of Ri>ecics therein c^italogued, and more or less 

 described, is aliout 168. But some birds obtained in the Prince-of- Wales 

 Island and Singapore are included, and a fttw sptKiies appear to have 

 been introduced into the list throiigli overaigbtj and on the strength of 

 caged birds. 



" In 1830, Lady Raffles puhlifihed a memoir of her late husband, to 

 which was ap|iendetl a catalogue, by Vigors, of the zoological specimens 

 collected in Sumatra. . . , About 194 species are enumerated. 



" Since 1830, no attempt at a complete account of the birds of Suroatra has 

 been published ; but a good many species not contained in Vigors* list have 

 been discovere<i and described, principally by the Dutch zoologists, more 

 partic\ilarly by Tenimiiick and by Solomon Miiller. Mr. A. R. Wallace, 

 during a stay ofaljont three months in tjje year 1861, colIecte<i some birds 

 in the district of Palembang, penetrating a himdred and twenty miles, 

 inland ; but no separate account of his collection has api>eaTed. 



" Dnriug a jjeriod of about five months, commencing the 30th of May 

 1876, Mr. Edmond C. Buxton travelled in the Lampong district ... He 

 start4Kl from Telok Betong. and went inland to Sukadana, a distance of 

 about eighty miles, and obtained in all 152 sjMjcies, of which two were 

 unde«'crilied." 



"From 1877-1870, the Dutch mid-Sumatra expedition, through the 

 Padang Highlands and along the Batang Hari river, added much to our 

 knowle<ige of the natural history of tliat region. 



From Juno to September, 1878, Dr. Beccari, the well-known Italian 

 natnralii^t, visited and collected on the mountains of Padang, chiefly on 

 Mount Singalan (8900 feet). It contained representatives of many Indo- 

 Chinese genera which have not been fountf iu the Lampongs, some of 

 which were, however, collected by the Author in the more SouUiem 

 residency of Paleml>ang. 



In August of the same year, Mr. Carl Bock, a Swedish naturalifit, 

 collected over the same region on i>ehalf of the late Lord 'rweeddale^ 

 obtaining 166 species. An account of this collection by Captain Wardlaw 

 BauLsay will bo found in the Proceedings of the 2k)ological Society of 

 London, 1880, p. 13. 



During 1880-1881, the Author made extonsiTe collections in the Lam- 

 pong and Palembang Residencies, which have been carefully worked out 

 by Mr. F. Kioholson, and a list given in the Ibis for 1879, pp. 51 and 235. 



