660 Messrs. Robinson and Kloss on Birds from the 
hoped that a projected expedition to the hills of Lakon will 
shortly explore the only promising district on the map of the 
peninsula which is still a terra incognita to the ornithologist. 
Though, as mentioned above, the northern Malay Peninsula 
is but slightly represented in ornithological literature, collec¬ 
tions of very considerable magnitude have been made within 
its limits; but, with one exception, no connected account of 
any of them has as yet appeared. It was not therefore to be 
expected that any actual novelties would be procured, and, 
as a matter of fact, the only new form described by us is 
a species of Myioplioneus , somewhat closely allied to those 
occurring both to the north and south of it. 
The earliest specimens obtained from this area are probably 
those of Cantor, which passed with the collections of the 
Indian Museum to the Natural History Museum at South 
Kensington. In the middle of the last century, however, 
before the importance of locality was recognised, Cantor, like 
other naturalists, paid but little attention to the exact places 
of origin of his specimens, and as a result many of his 
acquisitions, now assigned to “ Penang,” where he was sta¬ 
tioned, were certainly not obtained on that island, but were 
probably derived from native correspondents or hunters who 
secured them in the adjacent native states of Perlis and 
Kedah. 
About 1876 Allan Hume turned his attention to the Malay 
Peninsula, and in the course of the succeeding five years 
accumulated an enormous mass of material throughout the 
entire length of the western Malay Peninsula, from the 
Tenasserim border to Singapore. The work was carried out 
by Davison and Darling, assisted by a considerable staff of 
natives, and so thoroughly did they accomplish it that to 
this day hardly a single species has been secured within the 
area covered by them which they had not also obtained. 
In their day the Pax Britannica was hardly an accomplished 
fact in the Peninsula, and they w r ere therefore unable to 
penetrate into the more inland districts or to the mountains 
of the interior, whereas these localities have yielded a con¬ 
siderable crop of novelties to later explorers, of whom 
