522 LORD WALDEN ON PHILIPPINE BIRDS. [Julie 3, 



French traveller Sonnerat. He described and figured sixty-five 

 species as having been obtained by him when in the Philippines ; but 

 recent researches tend to prove that only thirty are inhabitants of 

 that archipelago. Several of his species remain to this day un- 

 determined ; yet the descriptions and figures were probably taken 

 from actual specimens ; for, although frequently most inaccurate in 

 the localities assigned, Sonnerat does not appear, like Levaillant, 

 to have wilfully described manufactured species and attributed false 

 habitats. Besides the species made known in his ' Voyage to New 

 Guinea,' Sonnerat brought to Paris several Philippine specimens, 

 which were subsequently described by Buffon or by Montbeillard, 

 and figured by D' Aubenton. On many of the Brissonian descriptions 

 Linnaeus founded titles ; and to nearly all the plates in Sonnerat's 

 work Scopoli, and after him Gmelin, gave binomial designations ; 

 while some of the species described in the ' Histoire Naturelle,' or 

 figured in the ' Planches Enluminees,' received names from either 

 Ludwig Statius Miiller, Gmelin, or Latham, and in some cases 

 from all of these writers. Generally subsequent authors named the 

 species they described ; and consequently little difficulty is en- 

 countered in the endeavour to recognize their species. 



" The first and only attempt to construct a complete list of the 

 Philippine avifauna was made by Dr. v. Martens, to whom I have 

 already alluded. That learned naturalist enumerates 194* species. 

 From these I have been obliged to deduct 24, — 4 from being un- 

 determinable, 7 because they are not found in the Philippines, 2 

 because the Philippine habitat is not satisfactorily established, and 

 11 because they bear as distinctive titles the synonyms of species 

 already catalogued under other titles. 



"Thus the list is reduced to 1/0 species, to which I have been 

 able to add only 46, making the number of authentically known 

 Philippine birds 216. This number is small, and may be eventually 

 increased when the archipelago has been more completely investi- 

 gated. Yet it may be fairly doubted whether the Philippines will 

 ever be found to be so rich in species as the remainder of the Indo- 

 Malayan subregion. Our knowledge of this avifauna is not sufficient 

 to support any general conclusions ; but enough is known to 

 establish the fact that the Philippine archipelago, like Celebes, is a 

 border land linking, as it were, the Papuan and Indian regions. As 

 we quit the mainland of the Indian region iu the south-east, it is 

 well known that the Indo-Er.hiopian types diminish in number, and 

 in the Philippines, as in Celebes, they may be said to be at their 

 minimum. But along with them many Indo-Malayan types also 

 disappear from both these insular areas ; while, on the other hand, 

 they are replaced by peculiarly Papuan generic forms, and by a few 

 peculiar forms not in numbers sufficient to balance the absence of 

 the Indo-Ethiopian and the Indo-Malayan. We consequently find 

 an ornis more anomalous in its admixture of forms, but poorer as 

 regards species. So far as we know, it may be asserted that, after 



* The numbering reaches to only 192 ; but Dasylojjhus cumingi, although 

 catalogued, is not numbered, and the number 154 is repeated. 



