212 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



Here there is a gap in the narrative, which is practically resumed at Meimbun, 

 in the island of Sulu proper. Here they made acquaintance with the Sultan, 

 whose authority is apparently nominal, and with many birds, including a green 

 parrot (Tanygnathus burbidgei), peculiar to the Sulu Isles ; and an almost new 

 sun-bird {Cinmjris julice) discovered in Mindanao by the " Challenger's" party. A 

 white cockatoo (Cacatua hcematuropygia) has the under-tail-coverts and vent 

 scarlet ; a single rose-coloured feather forms its crest ; and it is, says Dr. Guil- 

 lemard, " perhaps the commonest bird." Fancy a country where " the commonest 

 bird" owns such a figure and coloration as this cockatoo, and is also good in pie !' 



The Spaniards had a fortified port in the north of Sulu, which is marked by that 

 name in our charts; but they called it Jolo. Either name is preferable to one now 

 happily obsolete : " Soog." 



It does not appear to be a pleasant place, and gentlemen walking outside the 

 palisades without escort are apt to get their heads chopped off with a " parang." 

 This is a common word and weapon throughout the Eastern Isles ; but the Sulu 

 pattern, which Dr. Guillemard figures, deserves special notice. It very much 

 resembles a Ghorkha "kukri" out of curl; and still more the curious short sword 

 shown in some of our Indian Buddhist paintings and sculptures ; which has some- 

 times, owing to the indistinctness of the latter, been compared to the short broad- 

 sword of classic warfare.* 



Besides their eternal war with the Spaniards, the natives of Sulu are engaged 

 in continual local, tribal, and individual feuds; and our author thinks that most 

 of them would die in their boots if they had any. All parties treated the 

 "Marchesas" as neutrals* and guests; but on one occasion one of them, probably 

 mistaken for an " orang Castillan," (Spaniard) was actually stalked by a native 

 with a "parang," whom, however, his countrymen undeceived and quieted. The 

 principal wild mammal of the island seems to be the pig (species not noted); and 

 the Sulus showed our voyagers good pig-sticking. Of game birds they seem to 

 have noticed chiefly Gallus bankiva, (the universal Jungle-cock of the farther east 

 and probable ancestor of our Game fowls) and Excalfactoria chinensis, which 

 Dr. Guillemard calls a button-quail ;> wrongly, of course, (if he has rightly identi- 

 fied his bird) E. chinensis is the " Blue-breasted Quail" of Indian sportsmen; our 

 button-quails belonging to the genus Turnix, which has no hind toe ; and as these 

 names were adopted by Jerdon, whose English nomenclature was as systematic 

 as his Latin, they have a right to stand. If size was the only thing to consider, E 

 minima, the Dwarf-Quail of Celebes, wouldput both the Indian birds, as well as 

 the present species, out of court. It is the smallest game-bird in the world. 

 Speaking generally, our voyagers found the fauna of the Sulu group to be Philip- 

 pine in character, and Dr. Guillemard attributes to the Sibutu passage, separating 

 them from Borneo, an importance, as a Zoological boundary little inferior to 

 that of " Wallace's" line at the Lombok Strait, at the other side of the Malayan 



* Vide for instance plate 37 of Fergusson's Indian and Eastern Architecture ; 

 representing a relief from Amrawati ; and note that Amrawati was in constant 

 communication with the Malay Islands. 



