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Show 1886.] MR. R. B. SHARPE ON BIRDS FROM PERAK. 351 to be regretted that Mr. Davison was never able, through political obstacles, to reach the mountains on the eastern side of the peninsula and explore the high ridge or " backbone " which runs down its entire length. Considerable speculation has been excited respecting the fauna of these Malayan mountains, because all the collections hitherto made in Malacca have proved that, as regards the birds, there are very few species which are not common to Borneo, Sumatra, and the Malayan peninsula. Sumatra, however, has always enjoyed a certain distinction from possessing at least one genus, Psilopogon, peculiar to itself; and, again, in the mountains several Himalayan genera have been found with species identical with, or only slightly differing from, those which occur in the Eastern Himalayas and extend down the mountains of Tenasserim. Many Malayan species range into the southern portions of the last-named province; but as regards the Himalayan genera, such as Niltava, Liothrix, Pnoepyga, Sibia, & c , all traces of them are lost after leaving Tenasserim until they turn up again in Sumatra. Many prognostications have been made that when the mountains of the Malayan peninsula were explored, the above-named genera and many others common to the mountains of Tenasserim and Sumatra would be found to extend along the eastern side of Malacca ; but of this the first actual proof has been furnished by Mr. L. Wray, who has sent a small parcel of birds from the mountains of Perak to the British Museum. Although so few in number, the revelations which they disclose are of the greatest value, for they show that in Perak, at least, and probably throughout the mountain-range, there is a curious mixture of Himalayan and high-Sumatran forms. Thus the Psilopogon, hitherto supposed to be a peculiar Sumatran genus, is accompanied by Rhinocichla mitrata (Ianthocincla mitral a, auct.), another species hitherto believed to be confined to Sumatra; and the Sibia is also the Sumatran S. simillima, and not S. picata. The affinities of the Perak species being therefore so markedly Sumatran, it is not a little surprising to find that the Mesia is M. argentauris of the Himalayas, and not M. laurinai of Sumatra as one would have expected. The following is a list of the specimens sent by Mr. Wray, who informs us that they were mostly obtained at an elevation of 3000 feet, and that his native collector, after an experience of 30 years' work, had not met with some of the species before. Fam. MUSCICAPID^E. NILTAVA GRANDIS, Hodgs.; Sharpe, Cat. B. iv. p. 404. " No. 11. Male. Irides red ; legs and feet nearly black ; beak black. The female is brown, with a blue spot on each shoulder and a patch of ash under neck; head blackish and slightly glossed with blue. Specimens obtained at 4000 feet." Compared with males from Sikhim and Tenasserim in the Hume Collection, and apparently identical in every respect. |