Birds of Celebes: Meropidae. 
259 
from a considerable altitude (2000 ft and more) , where the several points of 
its discovery are almost within sight of one another. 
The Sara sins paid much attention to this species and succeeded in dis- 
covering its breeding habits. They write (in lit. 13. July, 1895) : “On 16*^ April 
we received nestlings when at Tomohon. The hunter described the nest as 
follows: On the earth-embankments round the small crater-lake on Mt. Masa- 
rang was a small entrance-hole, which led into a passage of over a meter long, 
this opened at the end into a chamber the size of a cooking-pot, filled with 
remains of food (ejectamenta), elytra of beetles, insects’ wings, etc. He brought 
a great mass thereof back, of which we send you two glass cylinders full. In 
this mass he found 2 young ones; one must have been dead already for a long 
time, for it was full of maggots and yet not turned out of the nest, the other 
was alive and bored continually into the mass of ejectamenta, in order to hide 
itself. Remains of egg-shells were also in the nest. We had already often 
remarked that all examples oi Meropogon had clay and dirt on the crest-feathers; 
this manifestly comes from its flying into holes in the ground”. 
As to the food of the species, shown by the ejectamenta sent by the Drs. 
Sarasin, Dr. Heller found: “The bulk of the insect-remains is formed of 
fragments of Hymenoptera ^ and indeed these consist principally of the wings, 
clypei, single segments of the body and the pollenigerous tarsi of a species of 
Apis (probably indica F.), also of the wings and clypei of a species of Dielis 
(perhaps jammca Lep.). Besides other Hymenoptera not to be deter- 
mined at once, remains of beetles are tolerably abundant, for instance^ of 
Euchlora (a form almost as big as a Cockchafer), Macronota sp., Glycyphana 
regalis Vo 11., and others”. 
Touching the- generic characters and nearest affinities of Meropogon^ Lord 
Walden remarks (6)\ “this species has the first primary half the length of 
the second, which is a little shorter than the third. The third and fourth are 
longest and equaF).. The fifth is somewhat shorter than the third and fourth 
but longer than the second. In the structure of the wing therefore it differs 
from both Merops and Melittophagus , but agrees with Nyctiornis'^). The grooved 
culmen of Nyctiornis is not present; but a shallow channel extends from the 
base of the maxilla, on both sides of the culmen, for two-thirds of its length .... 
The rectrices are truncated as in Nyctiornis^ but the middle pair are elongated, 
as in Merops, and closely resemble in form and proportion those of M. philippinus. 
The feet are those of the family. 'I'he elongated pectoral plumes resemble 
in character those of Nyctiornis. Altogether M. forsteni may be regarded as a 
link uniting Nyctiornis to Merops, but most nearly allied to Nyctiornis‘\ 
1) It would be more correct to say the third, fourth and fifth about equal and longest, the first about 
half their length, the second equal to the sixth. A feather must have been missing in Walden’s example. 
2) In Merops the first primary is abortive, and the second and third more or less nearly equal and 
longest. Lord Walden remarks that the Melittophagus^ which most nearly resembles M. forsteni in the 
graduation of the quills and the form of the rectrices, the middle pair excepted, is M. huUockoides Smith. 
33 * 
