of the Indian and Australian Regions. 19 



era in the colony of Queensland. The only large islands within 

 this area where no Sun- birds have as yet been discovered, are 

 the 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 {Arachnechthra, yEthopyga, 

 Chalcostetha) and two smaller groups, among the members of 

 which the affinities are not so evident [Nectarophila and An- 

 threptes). Arachnechthra 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 Nectarinies, through Cinnyris 

 osea, Bp., a species I am strongly inclined to consider con- 

 generic. 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. Arachnechthra is represented in Sindh, as 

 well as in New Guinea, in Ceylon, in Queensland, in the Philip- 

 pines, 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 unre- 

 presented. Chalcostetha, 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 Anthreptes consists of one species, which perhaps 

 ought not to be separated from Nectarophila. It occupies 

 almost the entire Indo-Malayan area, and passes over into 

 Celebes and the Sula Islands. In Nectarophila we find two 



c 2 



