Birds from North Borneo: University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History, Volume 17, No. 8, pp. 377-433, October 27, 1966Thompson, Max C.
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Birds from North Borneo: University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History, Volume 17, No. 8, pp. 377-433, October 27, 1966
Thompson, Max C.
Birds -- Malaysia -- Sabah
Authorities of the United States National Museum and The American Museum
of Natural History generously permitted me to work at those
institutions, using their specimens for comparative studies. Other
specimens were borrowed from the Museum of Comparative Zoology,
Rijksmuseum Van Natuurlijke Historie, British Museum (Natural History),
and the Yale Peabody Museum. Dr. Alexander Wetmore, Herbert Deignan, and
Charles Vaurie helped with some of the more difficult taxonomic
problems. Specimens cited in this report are in the Bernice P. Bishop
Museum, The University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, The
University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, and the U. S. National Museum.
Richard F. Johnston and Robert M. Mengel kindly read the manuscript and
made many helpful suggestions. The latter re-read it and assisted with
the editing.
The most recent comprehensive work published previous to my preparation
of manuscript for the present account was Smythies (1960) "The Birds of
Borneo."
This report is a partial result of field work supported by a grant from
the United States Army Medical Research and Development Command,
Department of the Army, to the Bernice P. Bishop Museum for research on
ectoparasites of vertebrates. The contract numbers were
DA-MD-49-193-62-G47 and G65. The Chapman Fund of The American Museum of
Natural History met part of the cost of transporting, to and from the
United States, specimens from North Borneo collected after I left there.
METHODS
While collecting at Quoin Hill, we used only guns in taking birds. At an
area 12 miles north of Kalabakan, we supplemented the guns with mist
nets in the primary forest. This method was excellent for taking rarely
seen species. For example the thrush _Zoothera interpres_ was never seen
in the field but was taken several times in mist nets.
Another method of collecting was the use of native snares. Such snares
were made of heavy nylon string tied to a sapling, held down by a nylon
string attached to a treadle. When a bird stepped on the treadle, it
tripped the snare and a loop closed about its feet, hoisting it aloft.
To divert large ground birds and mammals into the snare, natives placed
brush barriers along the top of a ridge for one or two miles. Animals
were diverted by these barriers until they came to an opening; if they
went through they usually tripped the trap. Pheasants and the large
ground cuckoo were taken in this manner.
NOTES ON ZOOGEOGRAPHY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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