Birds of Celebes: Meliphagidae. 4§1 



cup-shaped, rather flimsily constructed of grass-stems, hair, spiders' webs, etc. 

 and often placed in the fork of a tree or bush. In their habits the Myzomelae 

 seem to resemble the other small Honey-suckers, frequenting flowering shrubs 

 and trees, not apparently so much for the sake of the nectar of the flowers as 

 for the insects attracted thereby". 



GENUS MELILESTES Salvad. 



Bill • about twice as long as the cranium or more, decurved, culmen high 

 and sharp, bill as high as broad across the nostrils; nostrils linear, imperfectly 

 operculated; tomia terminally serrated, somewhat irregularly; wing longer than 

 tail, 1"' primary short, 2"'' primary about as long as the secondaries; tail square; 

 tarsus about V4 the wing-length, or a little more. 



Found in Papuasia and Celebes. 



"^ * 190. MELILESTES CELEBENSIS M.&Wg. 



Brown Honey-sucker. 

 Plate XXVIII. 



This very distinct species is known at present only from the mountains of 

 the north and of the south of Celebes, where it differs racially, but it is not 

 advisable to divide it into two species, as the difference is only a question of 

 shades of colour, which are almost certain to be found to merge into one 

 another in some intermediate part of Celebes. 



-* 1. The typical Melilestes celebensis. 



a. AracKnothera? celebensis (1) M.&Wg., Abh. Mus. Dresd. 1894—95, Nr. 4, p. 2. 



h. MelUestes celebensis (1) M.&Wg., t. c. Nr. 8, p. 12; (2) Hart., Nov. Zool. 1896, 237. 



Diagnosis. Lighter in colour; general colom- above almost dark tawny- oUve with black 

 centre-streaks; below greyish sepia, with buff-brown to buff edges to the feathei-s. 



Adult. Above dark greenish tawny -olive, with blackish mesial streaks to the feathers; 

 wings and tail blackish, with edgings of the colour of the back, or, on the primaries, 

 hghter; below greyish sepia, with broad margins to the feathers of brownish buff, 

 or light tawny-ohve, becoming whiter on the abdomen; flanks and thighs more 

 unifoi-m tawny-olive; remiges below dusky, the inner edges where they rest upon 

 the body hght fawn-colour, deeper on under wing-coverts, some of which are shghtly 

 streaked [cf , c. 1 200 m from the dechvity of Mt. Manunporok towards the Soputan 

 Eidge, N. Celebes, 22. April, 1895: P. & F. Sarasin: C 15690). 



"Bare skin around the eye hght yellowish, posteriorly rather darker yellow" (S.). 



Female. Similar to the male, but smaller. "Bill black; feet and legs grey, feet below 

 yellow; iris brown; bare skin round the eye yellow" ($, type, Bone Mts. 1100 m, 

 15. Jan., 1894: P. & F. S.). 



Jleyer t Wiglesworth, Birds of Celebes (Nov. 10th 1897). 61 



