278 Natural History 



Celebesian animals in some detail, to study their relations to 

 those of other islands, and to call attention to the many points 

 of interest which they suggest. 



We know far more of the birds of Celebes than we do of 

 any other group of animals. No less than 191 species have 

 been discovered, and though no doubt many more wading and 

 swimming birds have to be added, yet the list of land birds, 

 144 in number, and which for our present purpose are much 

 the most important, must be very nearly comjslete. I myself 

 assiduously collected birds in Celebes for nearly ten months, 

 and my assistant, Mr. Allen, spent two months in the Sula Isl- 

 ands. The Dutch naturalist Forsten spent two years in North- 

 ern Celebes (twenty years before my visit), and collections of 

 birds had also been sent to Holland from Macassar. The 

 French ship of discovery L"* Astrolabe also touched at Menado 

 and procured collections. Since my return home, the Dutch 

 naturalists Rosenberg and Bernstein have made extensive col- 

 lections both in North Celebes and in the Sula Islands ; yet 

 all their researches combined have only added eight species of 

 land bii'ds to those forming part of my own collection — a fact 

 which renders it almost certain that there are very few more 

 to discover. 



Besides Salayer and Boutong on the south, with Peling 

 and Bungay on the east, the three islands of the Sula (or Zu- 

 la) Archipelago also belong zoologically to Celebes, although 

 their position is such that it would seem more natural to group 

 them with the Moluccas. About 48 land birds are now known 

 from the Sula group, and if we reject from these five species 

 which have a wide range over the Archipelago, the remainder 

 are much more characteristic of Celebes than of the Moluccas. 

 Thirty-one species are identical with those of the former isl- 

 and, and four are representatives of Celebes forms, while only 

 eleven are Moluccan species, and two more representatives. 



But although the Sula Islands belong to Celebes, they are 

 so close to Bouru and the southern islands of the Gilolo group, 

 that several purely Moluccan forms have migrated there, 

 which are quite unknown to the island of Celebes itself; the 

 whole thirteen Moluccan species being in this category, thus 

 adding to the productions of Celebes a foreign element which 

 does not really belong to it. In studying the peculiarities of 



