228 
Birds of Celebes; Cuctilidae. 
Distribution. Soutli and West Celebes: Macassar (Wallace f g 3; Doherty i 2), Tjamba 
Distr. (Platen g 1, g 2\ Loka, Lnwn and Palopo (Weber 4), Indrnlaman (Everett 
^i); W. Celebes, Dongala (Doherty i 2). 
Specimens from East Celebes are similar to those of the North, but seem to be 
a shade darker. A specimen from S. E. Celebes in the Sarasiii-Collection (Ussu, 
20. II. 96) is also dark in coloration, and wants the ivory-white tip to the upper 
mandible, a condition which we have not seen in any specimen from the rest of the 
island. A female from West Celebes was found by Hartert to belong to the 
southern race. 
This species has been placed in the special snbgenns Rhamphococcyx of 
which it is the only species and peculiar to the Island of Celebes, Its nearest 
ally known is Rhinococcyx^ a subgenns represented by one species only, R. cur- 
(Shaw and Nodder', of Java. The nostril oi Rhamphococcyx is an elon- 
gated slit parallel to the gape, and the eye is surrounded by a bare space of 
smooth bluish grey skin ; the nostril of Rhinococcyx is placed in a groove termi- 
nating in a widened, somewhat pear-shaped, orifice, and the bare space, which 
occnjDies most of the side of the head is red in colour and rugose in character, 
looking as through formed of rudimentary feathers, which sprout, but do not 
come to perfection. Rhinococcyx is again, as Dr. Sharpe has pointed out (Tr. 
Z. S. 1877, 321), closely allied to Dryococcyx, a subgenus in which the nostril 
is a small circular hole, situated in a deep perpendicular groove, which sepa- 
rates the lores from the upper mandible; it is known only by one species from 
the island of Palawan. 
Urococcyx^ recently distinguished by Capt. Shelley in the Catalogue of 
the Cuckoos (pp. 368, 398), was held to have round nostrils not placed in a 
groove, but Count v. BeiTepsch (Nov. Zool. 1895, 72) has shown that in the 
species found in Borneo the nostril is oval; these forms are very like Rhino- 
coccyx curvirostris in coloration, and in Capt. Shelley’s system they come be- 
tween Rhinococcyx and Dryococcyx, and consist at present of three species, one, U. 
erythrognathus^ inhabiting Sumatra, the Natunas and Malacca as far as Tenasserim; 
one TJ. homeensis (Bp.), Borneo; while the habitat of the other, TJ. aeneicauda 
(J. and E. Verreaux), was unknown until quite recently, when it was found 
in Mentawei Id. off the W. coast of Sumatra by Modigliani '(Salvadori, Ann. 
Mus. Civ. Gen. 1894, 590). 
Sharpe (e2) remarks on P. calorhynchus : “to the true Phoenicophaes^ it is allied 
by the shape of the nostrils, but differs in its smooth face and feathered lores”. 
Lord Walden had already called attention to this supposed affinity (a 13)^ but 
it appears to us that the very different type of coloration places the typical 
snbgenns Phoenicophaes\ which is confined to Ceylon, in a position of much 
more remote relationship to Rhamphococcyx, Urococcyx, Rhinococcyx and Dryococcyx, 
which form a closely related group of subgenera, or, according to Count 
v^ Berlepsch, the well marked species only of one genus, Phoenicophaes. 
These forms, as indeed tho whole of the Phoenicophaeinae, are of special 
