The Birds of the Malay Peninsula

The Birds of the Malay Peninsula is a major illustrated ornithological reference work conceived and started by Herbert Christopher Robinson.

On his retirement in 1926 he started to write the first of the five volumes of the series, with financial support for publication coming from the government of the Federated Malay States.

With the help of Robinson's notes and papers, the third and fourth volumes were prepared by Frederick Nutter Chasen, the Director of the Raffles Museum in Singapore.

In 1964, Ken Scriven, a long-time resident of Malaysia, was in London and quite by chance discovered not only Banks's text but also the coloured plates by H. Gronvold.

This was more critical in its stance with the reviewer noting that although the overall classification scheme was based on Sharpe's Handlist, at several points it had been altered "according to the author's personal ideas" rather than following the general ornithological consensus of the time.

Boden Kloss considered the work to be unique in its scope, fulfilling a need that had existed for "a publication which is not too technical for the non-scientific bird-lover in Malaya.