Birds of Celebes: Picidae. 
179 
Marshall by no means makes it clear, however, why Celebes should have 
been colonised by its two Woodpeckers “at a much later time” than the other 
Sunda Islands. The two Celebesian species are very distinct from the other 
members of their genera in the Philippines and the Bornean Province, and they 
should be regarded as very long separated from the rest. On the other hand, 
as has been shown, the species of many genera in Java, Borneo and Sumatra 
are identical with, or but little different from, those of Malacca and S. E. Asia. 
These, therefore, may be considered either to have more recently invaded these 
islands by flight, or to have been recently cut off in them by the submergence of 
land. Though their wings are of good size, Woodpeckers do not aj)pear to attempt 
long flights, except, perhaps, the Colaptes of America, in which it is, as 
Malherbe says, rapid and prolonged; the keel of the sternum is shallow and the 
pectoral muscles, judging from the birds’ appearance on the wing, are feeble, 
and the habits of the family only call for flight in launching themselves from 
one tree to another, or in making their way at a low elevation to the next 
wood. Their absence in New Guinea and Madagascar, where, as Marshall 
points out, there can be no lack of suitable insect-food, and in the islands of 
Polynesia, where indeed insects are very scare, prove them, as might be expected 
from their flight and habits, to be birds to which a narrow sea-passage is a 
formidable barrier. On the whole, evidence is in favour of the view that Mi- 
crostictus and lyngipicus reached Celebes at a time when Borneo, Sumatra and 
Java were united to the Asiatic continent and when Celebes itself and the 
Philippines were also nearly or quite in touch with the continent. Submergence 
then put a sufficient barrier between it and Celebes, while new forms from the 
north subsequently invaded the other countries and gave the Philippines, Borneo 
and Java an avifauna so much richer in Picidae than that of Celebes. 
* 57. MICROSTICTUS WALLACEI (T weedd.). 
Wallace’s Slate-and-fawn Woodpecker. 
a. Alophonerpes fulvus (1) Cab. & Hein, (nec Q. & Gr.), Mus. Hein. lY, pt. 2, 1863, 107; 
(2) ? Salvad., Ann. Mus. Civ. Gen. 1875, YH, 646; (3) Tristr., Cat. Coll. B. 1889, 
102; (4) Heine & Pclinw., Noinencl. Mus. Hein. 1890, 216, pt. 
b. Mulleripicus fulvus (1) Wald., Tr. Z. S. 1872, YIH, 41. 
c. Mulleripicus wallacei (1) Tweedd., Ann. & Mag. N. H. 1877, XX, 533; (2) id.. Collected 
Orn. Works 562, 667; (3) P. & F. Sarasin, Z. Ges. Erdk, Berhn 1895, 327. 
d. Alophonerpes wallacei (I) W. Bias., Ztschr. ges. Orn. 1885, 209, 236, pi. XI, Q. 
e. Microstictus wallacii (1) Hargitt, Cat. B. XYHI, 1890, 491. 
Microstictus wallacei (1) Biittik, Zool. Erg. Weber’s Peise in Ost-Ind. 1893, 273; (2) 
M. & Wg., Abb. Mus. Dresden 1896, Nr. 1, p. 8; (3) iid., ib. Nr. 2, p. 10; (4) 
N Hartert, Nov. Zool. 1896, 159; (5) id., ib. 1897, 158. 
f. Lichtensteinipicus wallacei (1) Hart., Nov. Zool. 1897, 164. 
“Bantinotto”, Tjaniba District, Platen d I. 
“Sumboli”, Tonkean, E. Celebes, Nat. Coll. 
23 * 
