Additions to the Avifauna of suriname

It is self-evident that as the avifauna of a country becomes better known, the number of additions to its avifauna one can expect to make in a given period, must decrease. On the other hand, it may be said that for the same reason the value of each addition increases. During a stay in Suriname of about a year in 1965/66 I found 17 species of birds which had not been previously recorded from the country (Mees, 1968). A second stay of a year's duration (November 1971-November 1972), yielded eleven additions to the avifauna of Suriname: nine of these are based on material collected, whereas two are based on field-observations only. With one of the species being represented by two subspecies, and one held over from my previous stay when lack of comparative material made me uncertain of its identity, a total of 13 forms is here recorded for the first time from Suriname. As my impression was that the avifauna of the lowland-forest of Suriname is now reasonably well-known, I concentrated during my second stay on the higher levels, and on the southern savannas. Although the mountains of Suriname rise only to a maximum of 1280 m, scarcely more than mole-hills by Colombian standards, and an endemism as known from Mt. Roraima (2810 m) was not to be expected, I hoped, nevertheless, to obtain something new. Unfortunately, difficulties of finance and of organization prevented a visit to the level of about 1000 m that I had hoped to attain, but even at the very modest elevations of 450-550 m at which I worked, several species of birds were found which do not appear to occur in the adjacent lowlands. After my own short visit to the Sipaliwini Savanna on the Brazilian border (Jan.-Febr. 1966) and Renssen's somewhat longer stay (Jan.-March