OF CELEBES. 



271 



the best known groups of Celebcsian animals in eo!iie 

 detail, to study their rulatious to tliose of other islands, 

 and to call attention to the many points of interest whioh 

 they suggest. 



We know far more of the birds of Celebes than we do 

 of auy other group of aninuds. Ko less than lUl spet^ies 

 have been discovered, and though no doubt many mor« 

 wading and swimming bird.s have to be added, yet the list 

 of land birds, 144 in number, and %vhich for our present 

 purpose are much the most important, must bo very nearly 

 complete. I myself assiduously colleeted birds in Cek^ws 

 for ueariy ten months, and my assistant, Mr. Allen, si<ent 

 two months in the Sula islands. The Dutch naturalist 

 Forsten spent two years in Northern Celebes (twenty 

 years before tny visit), and collections of birds had also 

 ]}een sent to Holland from Macassar. Tlie French shiji 

 uf discovery, V Astrolabe, also touched at Menado anil 

 procured colltctions. Since my return home, the Duich 

 naturalists Rosenberg and Bernstein have made extensive 

 i-oUecLions both in North Celebes and in the Sula islands ; 

 yet all their r(?searches combined, have only added eight 

 species of land birds to those forming part of my own 

 collection — a fact which renders it almost certain that 

 there are very few more to discover. 



Besides Safayer and Boutong on the souths with Peling 

 and Bungay on the east, the three islands of the i^ula 

 (or Znla) Archipelago also belong zoologically to Celebes, 

 although their position is such, that it would seem more 

 natural to group them witli the Moluccas. About 48 land 

 birds are now known from the Sula group, and if we reject 

 I'rom these, five species which have a wide range over the 

 Archipelago, the remainder are much more characteristic 

 of Celebes than of the Moluccas. Thirty-one sjMiciea are 

 identical with those of the former island, and four ar« 

 representatives of Celebes forms, while only eleven are 

 Moluccan species, and two more representatives. 



But although the Sula islands belong to Celebes, they are 

 so close to Bourn and the southern islands of the Cilolu 

 group, that several purely Moluccan forms have migrat^'d 

 there, which are quite unknown to the island of Celebes 

 itself; tho whole thirteen Moluccan species being in this 



