68 ON PLATALEA REGIA. 



NOTE VI. 



ON THE OCCURRENCE OF PLATALEA REGIA, GOULD 

 ON CELEBES, BOEROE AND TIMOR 



Dr. E. D. VAN OORT. 



While making the osteological catalogue of the birds of 

 our Museum, I met with an imperfect skull of a spoonbill, 

 which has been sent over from Celebes by von Rosenberg 

 in the year 1864. The skull belongs to the black-billed 

 australian spoonbill, Platalea regia Gould. This object is 

 the bill of a bird mentioned by von Rosenberg in his general 

 work on the Malay Archipelago ') and which was shot 

 several years ago '^) in the rice-fields of the village Lango- 

 wan, N. B. Celebes. Von Rosenberg mentions this bill under 

 the obscure name of Platalea luzoniensis, saying that several 

 examples of this species, killed on the Soela Islands, are 

 in the collection of the Leyden Museum, while in his 

 manuscript-list of the birds, collected by him on Celebes 

 and sent in 1864 to our Museum, he says in addition to 

 the above-named skull, that two si^ecimen^ of PL luzo7iiens{s 

 were got by Hoedt on the Soela Islands. As we know, 

 Meyer and Wiglesworth were already iufornaed by Biitti- 

 kofer ^), that in the Leyden Museum there is no Platalea 

 whatever from the Soela Islands. The two authors there- 

 fore could only speak of a Platalea sp. observed on Celebes. 



1) H. vou Rosenberg. Der Malayische Archipel, 1878, p. 278. 



2) Von Rosenberg was collecting on Celebes in the years 1863 — 64. 



3) Meyer and "Wiglesworth. Birds of Celebes, II, 1898, p. 809. 



Notes from the Leytlen IVIuseiim, "V"ol. XXIX, 



