CHAP XX 



CELEBES 



459& 



sucker, Myza, belongs to a family which is confined to the 

 Australian region, while Malia and Cataponera belong to 

 the specially Oriental bulbuls and babblers. Enodes is a 

 remarkable form of starling, while Charitornis, found only 

 in the Sula Islands, and Gazzola, in the southern peninsula 

 of Celebes, are allied to the magpies and jackdaws. 



Besides these there are some other genera which though 

 not now confined to the Celebes group most probably 

 originated there. The large and handsome kingfisher, 

 Monachalcyon, is a type which was formerly considered to 

 be limited to Celebes, but species in the Philippines and 

 Lombok are now placed in the same genus, and both may 

 have been derived from the former island. The curious 

 parrots of the genus Prioniturus, having the two middle 

 feathers of the tail elongated with a spoon-shaped tip, 

 only occur elsewhere in the most southern island of the 

 Philippines, and these were almost certainly derived from 

 Celebes, since the former islands afford no such proofs 

 of antiquity as do the latter. In like manner, the fine 

 crested starlings, Basilornis, though having an allied 

 species in the island of Coram, almost certainly originated 

 in Celebes. 



We have here sixteen peculiar types which are either 

 peculiar to Celebes or originated in it, and many of these 

 are so remarkable or are so isolated as to suggest very 

 great antiquity, and a long-continued separation from the 

 adjacent lands and islands, to a much greater extent than 

 now prevails. Dr. Meyer, however, thinks these pecu- 

 liarities in no way remarkable, and that the most striking 

 feature of Celebes is, "not that it has so many highly 

 peculiar forms but so extremely few." And he adds, that 

 it has nothing to compare with a Dodo or Kiwi. This is 

 quite true, but has little to do with the question. 

 Celebes in not an ancient oceanic island like Mauritius or 

 an extremely isolated land like New Zealand, but is closely 

 surrounded on every side by a continent and by large and 

 rich islands. So far as I am aware there is no other 

 island on the globe in any way similarly situated which 

 exhibits such an amount of zoological peculiarity and so 

 many remarkable characteristics in its chief forms of life, 



