Raptorial Birds of the Malay Archijjelago. 3 



Sumatra, Java, and Borneo) has thirty-eight species, the Phi- 

 lippines (no doubt imperfectly explored) ten, the Celebes group 

 twenty-five, Moluccan group twenty-five, Timor group sixteen, 

 Papuan group fourteen. Yet, owing to the larger number of 

 islands, and the richness of Celebes as compared with the 

 Philippines, the Austro-Malayan Region, on the east, possesses 

 more species than the ludo-Malayan Region on the west, the 

 former having fifty-eight, the latter forty-four species. The 

 greater power of flight and more roaming habits of the diurnal 

 as compared with the nocturnal birds of prey is well indicated 

 by the fact that, while fourteen Falconidce are common to the 

 Indian and Australian regions of the Archipelago, only a single 

 Owl has the same range — which is very suggestive of the 

 natural character of these divisions. But few of the genera 

 have a limited range. Hierax is strictly confined to the Indian 

 region, and Spizaetus, Polioaetus, and Spilornis only pass beyond 

 it into Celebes. This island exhibits its usual characteristic of 

 a number of peculiar species, having (with the Sula Islands) 

 eleven out of twenty-five which are found in no other island, an 

 unusually large number in this wide-roaming group of birds. It 

 also seems to have some power of conferring on its species a 

 peculiar /flcies, similar to that which I have already noticed as 

 occurring among the Papilionidee (Trans. Linn. Soc. xxv. 

 pp. 1-71). The Celebes varieties of Pernis cristatus and 

 Spizaetus lanceolatus are coloured exactly alike, with a brown 

 spotted baud across the breast ; and there is a similar style 

 of coloration in Spilornis rvfipectus and S. sulaensis, as well as 

 in Baza magnirostris — all species peculiar to the Celebes group. 

 Truly this island is a mystery hard to be understood — one of 

 Nature's best riddles, which no man can find out ! 



The classification of the Birds of Prey is so difficult that 

 hardly two authors entirely agree upon it. As regards eastern 

 genera, I think Dr. Jerdon, in his ' Birds of India,' has given 

 the most natural arrangement ; and I mainly follow him in the 

 Falconidce. It appears to me very unnatural to break up the 

 large and powerful Eagles of the genera Circaetus, Spilornis, and 

 Spizaetus among the Buzzards and Hawks, as is done by 

 Bonaparte and Prof. Schlegel, because we thereby destroy the 



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