Catalogue of mammals and birds of Burma / by the late E. Blyth ; with a memoir, and portrait of the author.

  • Edward Blyth
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Catalogue of mammals and birds of Burma / by the late E. Blyth ; with a memoir, and portrait of the author. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    177/202 (page 147)
    *523. Chalcophaps indicus (J. 798). India, Indo-China, and Malay countries, Andaman Islands; but tlie Nicobar race* is a little peculiar, and corresponds with C. mar ice, I3onap. [Rangoon, Tongboo, foot of Karen hills (TP. It.); Tenasserim (/).). Recent investigations do not confirm tlic opinion that the Nicobar race of this species differs.] Subfam. Caiaeninaj (Hackled Ground-Pigeons). 524. Calcenas nicobaeicus. Columba nicobarica, Lin.; Edwards, pi. 339 ; PI. Enl. 491. This remarkable bird is common in the Mergui archipelago, and I have received the young from the Cocos Islets, north of the Andamans. It seems to be only able to maintain itself in islands where there are no small carnivor¬ ous mammalia; and I doubt, therefore, the statement that it is “common on the Tenasserim coast.”f Order GALLINACE^E. Poultry-Birds. Fam. Pavonidee. Pheasants, etc. Subfam. Pavoninje (Peafowl). *525. Pavo httticus. Pavo muticus, L. Oo-doung. Elliot, Mon. I'has. pt. ii. pi. 11. Chittagong, Arakan, Tenasserim, Siam. Invariably of darker and less vivid colouring than the species as it occurs in Java, but not otherwise differing. In the provinces of Sylhet and Assam the Indian species, P. cris- tatus, replaces it.J It is doubtful, at present, whether this species really inhabits the Malayan peninsula or Sumatra; but Crawfurd distinctly asserts that it inhabits “the tropical countries lying between India and China,_of the Malayan peninsula, and the islands of Sumatra and Java.”§ On the other hand, Wallace remarks that “ it is a singular fact in geographical distribution that the Peacock should not be found in Sumatra or Borneo, while the superb * J. A. S. B. xv. p. 371. + Calc. J. N. H. ii. p. 144. t Calc. J. N. H. i. p. 605. § Tr. Etbn. Soc. n.s. vol. ii. p. 451.