622 Observations made in the Central Philippines. 
OBSERVATIONS MADE IN THE CENTRAL 
PHILIPPINES. 
BY J. B. STEERE. 
sas islands of Panay, Guimaras, Cebu and Bojol may well be 
grouped together and called the Central Philippines. They 
are geographically connected ; their people are of allied races and 
language, and, as we found, they are closely allied zoologically. 
With Mindanao on the south, Palawan on the west, Masbate and 
Mindoro on the north, and Leyte and Samar on the east, they are 
separated from all these by broad straits, while the channels divid- 
ing them among themselves are at their narrowest points nowhere 
more than five or six miles of continuous sea, and this usually 
shallow and apparently rapidly changing hues, so that the land 
areas must have been very different in size and form ata very recent 
period. — 
We arrived at the end of December, 1887, at Ilo Ilo, the cap- 
ital of Panay, and the principal trade centre of the surrounding 
islands. Soon after we moved over to a pleasant native house on 
the island of Guimaras opposite. The place was on thé beach, at 
the foot of some steep! cliffs of coral, a little brook came 
tumbling down at one side, while a fine grove of cocoa palms 
shaded the house. The woods were near, and beautiful sun birds 
and Diceeums were flying about the palm houses, while several of 
the most beautiful species of the famed Philippine tree shells were 
found in abundance on the barn door and other outhouses near by. 
We were near enough the city to get a supply of fresh meat and 
bread every morning, and it was the nearest a naturalist’s paradise 
we had yet found. The birds as they came in, though of genera 
we had already become familiar with in the west and south, were 
most of them of different species, showing that we had reached 4 
new and distinct area, _ 
The west side of the island is made up of steep, rugged cliffs of 
limestone, which rise up from two to three hundred feet above the 
sea. The rock has weathered into crevices and holes, leaving 
