_Birds._--The late Marquis of Tweeddale made a special study of Philippine birds, and in 1873 published a catalogue in the _Transactions of the Zoological Society_ (Vol. IX. Pt. 2, pp. 125-247). But since that date large collections have been made by Everett, Steere, and other travellers, the result of which has been to more than double the known species, and to render the ornithological fauna an exceedingly rich one. Many of the Malayan genera which were thought to be absent when the first edition of this work was published have since been discovered, among which are Phyllornis, Criniger, Diceum, Prionochilus, and Batrachostomus. But there still remain a large number of highly characteristic Malayan genera whose absence gives a distinctive feature to the Philippine bird fauna. Among these are Tiga and Meiglyptes, genera of woodpeckers; Phaenicophaes and Centropus, remarkable cuckoos; the long-tailed paroquets, Palaeornis; all the genera of Barbets except Xantholaema; the small but beautiful family Eurylaemidae; many genera allied to Timalia and Ixos; the mynahs, Gracula; the long-tailed flycatchers, Tchitrea; the fire-backed pheasants, Euplocamus; the argus pheasants, the jungle-fowl, and many others. The following tabular statement will illustrate the rapid growth of our knowledge of the birds of the Philippines:-- |Land-birds.|Water-birds.|Total. +-----------+------------+------ Lord Tweeddale's Catalogue (1873) | 158 | 60 | 218 Mr. Wardlaw Ramsay's List (1881) | 265 | 75 | 340 Mr. Everett's MSS. List of Additions (1891)| 370 | 102 | 472 The number of peculiar species is very large, there being about 300 land and forty-two water birds, which are not {389} known to occur beyond the group. We have here, still more pronounced than in the case of Borneo, the remarkable fact of the true land birds presenting a larger amount of speciality than the land mammals; for while more than four-fifths of the birds are peculiar, only a little more than half the mammals are so, and if we exclude the bats only two-thirds.