1872.] ON THE BIRDS OF CELEBES. 127 



CiSTICOLA GEATI, n. sp. 



Forehead, crown, nape, sides of neck, breast, abdomen, flanks, under and upper tail-coverts, 

 and under carpal coverts unspotted rufo-fulvous, most intense on the head ; back and quills dark 

 brown, edged with rufo-fulvous ; rectrices dark brown, tipped with rufo-fulvous. 



Obtained in Celebes by Dr. Meyer, and represented by a single example in such bad order A. M. N. TT. 

 that I am unable to describe it more minutely. Many of the abdominal feathers seem to be pure ^"^p 4oV'^' 

 white, and the chui, throat, and ear-coverts to be pale fulvous. 



A List of the Birds known to inhabit the Island of Celebes. By Arthur, Viscount Waldex, Tr. Z. s. viii. 

 F.E.S., President of the Society. [From the ' Transactions of the Zoological Society,' vol. viii. ^' ~'^' 

 part ii. May 1872 *, Plates III.-X. in orig.] 



Situated in the midst of the vast collection of islands which contribute to form the Malay 

 archipelago, Celebes possesses an avifauna of a type peculiar to itself The geographical position 

 of the island and the leading characteristics of its fauna have been so clearly explained and 

 depicted by Mr. Wallace f, that it is almost unnecessary for me to add any observations of my 

 own on these points. 



This great naturalist has shown that the principal and most striking peculiarity of the fauna 

 of Celebes is its individuality — a generalization fully supported by the evidence furnished by its 

 birds ; and it is the chief object of this paper to give a list of all the birds authentically recorded 

 as inhabitants of Celebes, and to show in some detail the zoogeographical relations of its genera 

 and species. 



Our knowledge of the Celebean ornis has been principally derived from the discoveries of the 

 Dutch travellers Forsten, Von Rosenberg, and Bernstein, and from those of Mr. Wallace. Yet 

 although the Dutch naturalists and our great English traveller ransacked those parts of Celebes 

 they traversed or resided in, they all more or less covered the same ground. The larger portion 

 of the island (fully two thirds of its area) still remains ornithologically unknown. 



All the species yet described from Celebes appear to have been obtained from the districts 

 of Macassar and Bonthain in the south, and from the districts of Gorontalo and Minahassa in the 

 north. That part of the island which stretches north from about the fifth parallel S. lat. to the 

 Gulf of Tontoli, and east thence to Limbotto, the lesser of the two eastern limbs of the island, 

 the whole of the south-east limb, and all the central country from which these limbs extend seem 

 to have never been explored by an ornithologist. 



* [Eead May 2, 1871. — Ed.] t llalay Archipelago, vol. i. chap, xviii. 



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