William Hamilton Bird was an Irish musician who was active in India during Company rule. He was a pioneer in transcribing Indian music into western notation.  
 The publication for which he is remembered appeared in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) the capital of British-held territories in 1789. The Oriental Miscellany; being a collection of the most favourite airs of Hindoostan, compiled and adapted for the Harpsichord consists of about 30 pieces plus a flute sonata.
The book was republished in Edinburgh (c. 1805 after Bird's death) with a slightly different selection of pieces. 
 Little is known of Bird´s early life.  He appears to have come from Dublin, and by his own account he travelled to India in about 1770, remaining there until the 1790s. 
 Bird's transcriptions of Indian music can be seen in the broad context of European interest in "national" music, evidenced by publications of Irish and Scottish folk-song arrangements, such as "25 Scottish Songs"  (Beethoven). They can also be seen in the context of a mingling of cultures in late 18th century India, as described, for example by the historian William Dalrymple.
The first edition of Bird's work was dedicated to Warren Hastings, the de facto Governor-General of India from 1773 to 1785. Hastings was interested in Indian music and Indian culture generally, he had promoted the first translation into English of the Bhagavad Gita.  Other members of the British community who were interested in Indian music included: 
 The music came from an oral tradition, and we are not in a position to compare the transcriptions directly with the original versions. However, there is little doubt that in various ways, Bird's transcriptions are not faithful to the original versions:
 Bird appears to have collected his material from live performances of genres such as tappa (a mainly vocal tradition).  Sometimes he indicates the singer associated with the piece.
 Bird's transcriptions appear to reflect the work of uncredited collaborators such as Sophia Plowden. 
Katherine Butler Schofield has examined the evidence that Plowden was Bird's source for some of the tunes he published. She was a fan of the nautch girl Khanum Jan, one of the singers referenced in Bird's work. She compiled her own collection of airs from the court of Lucknow, a manuscript which is preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Plowden wrote down lyrics as well as music, and she thus facilitates the restoration of North Indian  words to some of the pieces in Bird's book (which supplies Urdu titles but not lyrics).
 The British label Signum Classics released a recording of the "Oriental Miscellany" in 2015 featuring the harpsichordist Jane Chapman. It received international attention. 
Jane Chapman had studied the music in a project supported by the Leverhulme Trust. She played a 1722 Jacob Kirckman instrument in the Horniman Museum, London. For the recording it was tuned in Vallotti temperament, an alternative to equal temperament (the norm in Western music). This non-standard tuning gives the player more scope for an approximation of the modes (ragas) of Indian music.
 Bird's work is also in the repertoire of other harpsichordists, for example Mahan Esfahani.