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THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OP THE LAND- 

 BIRDS OF THE BANDA ISLANDS. 



By J. R. McClymont. 



The Banda Islands are situated between eight and nine 

 hundred miles to the west of the line of division between the 

 Indian and Australian Regions which passes between Celebes 

 and Borneo. The facies of the avifauna of Banda is therefore 

 Australian. Halcyon chloris may be less characteristically 

 Australian than the other birds of the islands, but as the King- 

 fishers are quasi-cosmopolitan, and as the range of Halcyon 

 chloris extends from Africa to Polynesia, its presence in the 

 Banda Islands is not significant. At least four of the genera 

 which are represented in Banda are typical Australian genera, 

 namely, Bhipidura, Monarcha, Pachycephala, and Myzomela. 



The islands of the Banda Sea (with the exception of Letti 

 Kisser and Wetter, which are in the Timor Group) constitute 

 the Cerani Subgroup of the Moluccan Group ; the principal 

 units of the Subgroup are Buru, Amboyna, the Banda Islands, 

 Ceram, Ceram Laut, Goram, the Matabela Islands, Kur, the 

 Tiandu Islands, the Ke Islands, the Tenimber Islands, Babar, 

 and Dama. The Banda Islands are eight in number, and con- 

 sist of four central islands in close proximity one to another — 

 Lonta or Great Banda, Banda Neira, Gounong Api, and Pisang ; 

 together with several small islets — Rozengain, about ten miles 

 distant to the south-east of the central group ; Wai, at an equal 

 distance to the west ; Rhun, about eight miles almost west by 

 south from Wai ; and the islet of Suangi or Manukan, about 

 seventeen miles nearly north by east from Rhun. 



When the Banda Islands are named in this paper as the 

 habitat of certain species, the central group only is contemplated. 

 On Great Banda and Banda Neira the trees of greatest import- 

 ance are the kanary tree, and the nutmeg tree which was intro- 

 duced into the islands by the Dutch in the seventeenth century. 



