Spolia mentawiensia: Birds. F.N. Chasen and C.B. Kloss. Records of the Raffles Museum, No. 25
This brief notice by F.N. Chasen and C.B. Kloss (1926) reports on two contributions to the “Spolia Mentawiensia” series (Records of the Raffles Museum, No. 25), covering the birds and the reptiles and amphibians collected during the Raffles Museum’s expedition to the Mentawi Islands, West Sumatra.
The birds section, reviewed by C.B.K., notes that the authors consider little remains for future ornithological discovery on the Mentawis except perhaps among migrants and shore-birds, and that their “List of Mentawi Birds” is not regarded as final. The paper is illustrated by a map and a coloured plate of a new subspecies of Serpent-eagle, Spilornis elgini sipora (p. 263). The reptiles and amphibians section, by Malcolm A. Smith, lists species newly recorded from the islands, including lizards, snakes, and amphibians from Siberut and Sipora, and describes two new forms: Boiga nigriceps brevicauda and Calamaria klossi. Smith concludes that the herpetofauna of the West Sumatran chain is distinctly Sumatran, though a few species of peculiar distribution are known from the islands but not yet from the larger island (pp. 263–264).