VISCOUNT WALDEN ON THE BIEDS OF CELEBES. 55 



C. sonnerati, Lath., founded on Sonnerat's Petit coucou des Indes (Voy. Indes, ii. 

 p. 211), from its being more or less rufous at all ages, and a small species, has been 

 often confounded with either one or other of the foregoing. Its Javan representative, 

 but slightly differing, is the C.inavatus, Horsf, =C. fasciolatiis, S. Miiller, =C. rufo- 

 vittatus, Drapiez. The group is also represented in Sumatra, Malacca, Borneo, and 

 Ceylon. This form, raised to generic rank by Dr. Cabanis {Penthoceryx), has the bill 

 long, broad at the base, and uncompressed throughout its entire length, the maxilla 

 overlapping the mandibula. In old birds the rufous and dark brown bands of the 

 upper plumage are washed with bronze-green. From the chin to the under tail- 

 coverts each feather is white, traversed by usually three naiTOW, dusky, irregular lines ; 

 the white interspaces being three or four times as broad as the dusky lines. A 

 uniform transverse striated appearance is thus imparted to the under plumage, never 

 found in any other group of the small Asiatic Cuckoos. The middle pair of rectrices 

 are, according to age, either almost entirely dark brown with a bronzy gloss, or else 

 have both sides of the shaft dark brown, indented with bright rufous. The lateral 

 rectrices are never evenly barred through, are always bright rufous with dark cross 

 marks, have a white or else a pale fulvous terminal spot and a penultimate broad 

 dark brown band. Many of the frontal plumes are white at their base and in the 

 centre — a character alone sufficient to distinguish this group from any of the Plaintive 

 Cuckoos in hepatic plumage. 



C. infuscatus, Hartl., is either another type of the Plaintive Cuckoos, or else it 

 belongs to the same subsection of C. passerinus ; or it may prove to be only a phase of 

 C. simus. 



A Macassar specimen, collected by Mr. Wallace, appears to belong to the group of 

 which C. merulinus is typical. It has six of the secondary quills with rufous bars, part 

 of the unmoulted hepatic dress ; otherwise it is undistinguishable from Javan examples 

 of C. lanceolatus. The lateral rectrices are, as in that species, broadly barred with pure 

 white. It is, however, a larger bird, with wings and tail somewhat longer. Wing 4|-, 



CENTBOPODIN.ffi. 



Ptkkhocentok, Cabanis. 

 63. Ptkrhocentoe celebensis (Quoy & Gaimard), Voy. Astrol. Zool. i. p. 230, pi. 20, 



" Menado " (1830). 

 Centroptis bicolor, Cuvier, Mus. Paris, /rfe Pucheran, Rev. et Mag. Zool. 1853, p. 472; Lessou, Tr. 

 p. 137 (1831). 



Hob. Menado {mus. nostr.) ; Gorontalo (Forsten). 



I cannot find that Cuvier ever published his title of C. bicolor. A second species of 

 this subsection inhabits the Philippines (P. unimfus. Cab.). But it is not unlikely that 



