1870.] SUN-BIEDS OF THE INDIAN AND AUSTRALIAN REGIONS. 71 



1870. 



On the Sun-birds of the Indian and Australian Regions*. By Arthur, Viscount Walden, ^^^^^ l^^' 

 P.Z.S. &c. [From ' The Ibis,' January 1870, plate I. in orig."] 



All those Sun-birds which are not found in the Ethiopian region form the subject-matter of 

 this paper. The geographical range of the group extends, on the mainland of Asia, from the 

 mouth of the Indus, in the west, to the shores of the Chinese Sea in the east. It includes, 

 besides Ceylon, nearly all, if not all, the islands of the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan 

 subregions. Its most northern and north-western limit is reached in the neighbourhood of 

 Kotegurgh, on the Sutlej, and its most southern in the colony of Queensland. The ibis, 1870 

 only large islands within this area where no Sun-birds have as yet been discovered are the P- ■'^^• 

 Indo-Malayan island of Formosa and the Austro-Malayan islands of New Britain and of the 

 Salomans. 



The total number of species is about forty, and they are divisible into three natural genera 

 [Arachncchthra, utEthopyga, Chalcostctha) and two smaller groups, among the members of which 

 the affinities are not so evident (Neetarojjhila and Anthre_[>tes). Arachncchthra is the most 

 largely diffused, contains the greatest number of species, many nearly allied, but well defined, 

 includes the most widely spread of all the eastern Sun-birds, A. asiatica, and is generically the 

 most closely connected with the Ethiopian Nectarinice, through Cinntjris osea, Bp., a species I 

 am strongly inclined to consider congeneric. Being a dominant group, we find it universal in 

 the distribution of its members. Besides occurring in Ceylon, in India, and in the Indo-Chinese 

 countries, they are spread throughout the two subregions Mr. Wallace has so well defined, the 

 Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan, and overlap the range of all the other genera. Arach- 

 ncchthra is represented in Sindh, as well as in New Guinea, in Ceylon, in Queensland, in the 

 Philippines, and in the Sunda Islands, ^thopyga is confined to a more restricted range. It 

 is typical of the Indo-Malayan subregion, in which I comprise the lower Himalayan ranges and 

 their Terais, from Western Nipaul to the bend of the Sampo, the mountainous regions to the 

 east and south-eastward of that river, and of India generally, as well as the countries of Assam, 

 Sylhet, Aracan, and Tenasserim. One species has found its way to, or has been left behind in, 

 the highland jungles of Central and Western India; and another is to be met with beyond the 

 Indo-Malayan frontier, in Celebes. In Ceylon the group is unrepresented. Chalcostctha, with 

 one exception, is a purely Austro-Malayan genus, the exception, C. insignis (Jard.), an Indo- 

 Malayan form, presenting affinities in several directions. The genus Antlireptes consists of one 

 species, which perhaps ought not to be separated from Ncctarophila. It occupies almost the 

 entire Indo-Malayan area, and passes over into Celebes and the Sula Islands. In Nectarophila 



* The term " Indian Region " is here used in a purely geographical sense. As a zoogeographical erpression, I find 

 difficulty in recognizing its value ; for the avifauna of continental Asia, south of the middle range of the Himalayas and of 

 its eastern extensions, may be roughly said to consist of two distinct groups of birds — the one inhabitants of the mountains 

 and their slopes, the other inhabitants of the plains. The first, in whatever part of India proper they occur, are allied to 

 Indo-Malayan forms ; the last are closely connected with African species or genera. 



