158 A NATUBALI8T IN 0ELEBJE8 ch. vii 



flies, moths, beetles, by the shrieks and screams of the parrots, 

 starlings, and scissor-tailed birds. 



If I had only had with me a few companions willing to 

 devote themselves to the collection of different specimens, 

 we should have made a magnificent collection of new and 

 interesting animals, but the interest of the party was nearly 

 the whole time concentrated upon the efforts of the Dominie 

 to bring down with his needle-gun one of the three or 

 four large ospreys that were soaring above our heads, and 

 even when he had succeeded, and presented me with the 

 mangled remains of the bird I had often wished for, I had 

 the greatest difficulty in stimulating the ornithological 

 enthusiasm of Manuel to a proper pitch. 



The most interesting bird I obtained upon this little 

 island was a fine specimen of the handsome parrot, 

 Tanygnaihus megalorhynchus. It is not uncommon in the 

 Talaut and Sangir Islands, but, like its little ally the Eos 

 indica, is almost unknown in Celebes. Meyer (46) says that 

 he obtained one specimen on the Uttle island Mantehage, 

 near Manado, but other ornithologists have failed to obtain 

 any specimens from Celebes at all. It has a fairly wide geo- 

 graphical distribution extending as far south as New Guinea. 



It is an interesting fact that the wing-coverts gradually 

 change from a deep green colour to a brilliant metallic blue 

 as we approach the southernmost limit of the species. The 

 specimens I obtained have quite green covert feathers, and 

 those from New Guinea, in the Leiden Museum, are blue. 

 Intermediate varieties of these two colours are found in the 

 islands which lie between these two extremes. 



On the following day I visited the smaller Saha island, 

 but found fewer birds and butterflies there than on the larger 

 one. The woods were very damp, and there were many 

 screw pines, mangroves, and other marsh trees, but, per- 

 haps owing to the greater scarcity of birds, a great many 

 hehces and other land and swamp molluska were found. 



