86 GHZ SIO, V=1, J=2-]1 SURVEY OF SOUTHERN IRAS POINT SOURCES .2. DETECTION OF 74 NEW MASER SOURCES

The detection of 74 new southern stellar SiO, v = 1, J = 2 --> 1 maser s associated with IRAS point sources is reported. 57 of these were fou nd in an IRAS based survey of oxygen rich stellar envelopes. The detec tion rate in this survey was 45%. 17 further new maser sources were de tected during a search for strong pointing sources for the Swedish-ESO Submillimeter Telescope (SEST). The distribution of the IRAS low reso lution spectral (LRS) classes of all the SiO masers (this paper and li terature) peaks sharply at class 15. The distribution of the LRS class es of the maser sources from 21 to 29 is similar to the distribution o f these classes of all the point sources in the point source catalogue except for class 25. Only few maser sources of this spectral class ar e known. This is possibly explained by a selection effect.