506 Birds of Celebes: Timeliidae. 



best be distingiiished by its fulvous, not olivaceous grey, breast and sides, and 

 by its having the region round the eye fulvous. Androphilus castaneus (Biltt.) 

 of N. Celebes may be known by its white superciliary streak, dark chestnut- 

 umber upper surface and sides and much smaller size, as well as by the rictal 

 bristles being unnoticeably small, and by its having 10 rectrices. Dr. Sharp e 

 places T. celehensis between T. abbotti (Blyth), which ranges from the Himalayas 

 to Borneo, and T. gularis (Sharped of West Africa, but Mr. Biittikofer rele- 

 gates both these sjiecies to other genera, and places the Celebesian form next 

 to T. rostratum Blyth, of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo. 



Mr. Wallace comments upon the rarity of the Timeliidae in Celebes 

 (Geogi-. Distr. 1876, I, 430), and with right. The only members of the family 

 yet known from the Province are Malia (peculiar), lole, Trichostotna, Androphilus, 

 Cisticola (which is better placed among the Sjjlviidae) and looking through the 

 Timeliine groups contained in the seventh volume of the Catalogue of Birds 

 alone, we find Dr. Sharp e numbers nearly 80 genera from the Indian Region, 

 while Mr. Everett in his List of the Birds of Borneo (1889, p. 91 sq., J. Str. Br. 

 P.. As. S.) names 39 genera (if we count the Brachypodidae only as a subfamily 

 of the Timeliidae) as occurring in Borneo alone. Australia and Papuasia, though 

 far less wealthy in genera than the Indian Region, are very well off when 

 compared with the strange rarity of these birds in Celebes and the Moluccas. 

 Another curious point is, apparently, the somewhat frequent occurrence of the 

 same genus and closely allied species in the Indian Region and Africa south 

 of the Sahara, while the whole family is known by a very few forms only in 

 the Palaearctic Region. The last point is, however, partly to be explained on 

 the ground that ornithologists have been overcareful to uphold the Palaearctic 

 Thrushes, Warblers, and Shrikes as distinct families, throwing aside their varied 

 host of exotic allies as "Timeliidae". The simplest way of accounting for this 

 rarity of the family in Celebes and the Moluccas and the similarity of some of 

 its forms in Africa and the Indian Region seems to be on the large assumption 

 that its distribution was once much what it is now, but extended further north 

 until the last glacial period, which drove certain forms south of the Sahara and 

 of the Himalayas, while a few non-migratory forms crossed to the islands of 

 Celebes and of the Moluccas. As a few forms of the Indian Region and 

 Australia are identical, though as a rule Australia has its own genera, the further 

 supposition would have to be made that such wandered to Australia at the same 

 time. We have even species belonging to the same genus (Sphenoeacus), according 

 to Sharpe, in South Africa and New Zealand. 



; * 207. TRICHOSTOMA FINSCHI Tweedd. 



South Celebes Babbler. 



a. Trichostoma celebense (1) Wald. (nee Strickl.), Tr. Z. S. 1872, YIH, (52; (2j Finscli & 

 Conrad, Verb. z.-b. Ges. Wieu 1873, 2, 9 (sep. copy); (3) Biittik., Notes Leydeii 



