354 
Birds of Celebes: Pittidae. 
met with it in numbers during April 1886, but in the following year Mr. Everett 
sent a collector to that island, where he procured numbers of Pitta muelleri, and 
no P. cyanoftera. When Mr. Whitehead visited the island there were no 
P.muelleri to he seen. This species (cyanoptera) is fairly plentiful in Labuan 
in some seasons; at other times it is not to be met with (7). Mr. Whitehead 
remarks that this species “takes flight more often when alarmed than P. ussheri 
or any other species of this genus that I have met with”, as might indeed be 
expected in a form given to making especially long journeys on the wing. 
Its absence or rarity in the Philippines is instructive; its route of migration, 
like that of Lanius tigrinus, seems to be a southern one. In some quarters it 
seems to occur all the year round; according to Mr. Hose (12), this is the 
case in the Baram District of Borneo, and, according to Mr. Oates, in Southern 
Tenasserim. 
Davison (h 3) makes the following remarks on the habits of this bird: 
“This species is fond of perching on trees; you may continually see them high 
up upon high trees calling vociferously. They are not at all wild or shy birds; 
they feed freely on ants and their larvae, all insects, grubs, and land shells. I 
never noticed this or any of its congeners coming to the water to drink. This 
and the closely-allied P. megarhyncha seem to frequent most commonly thin tree 
jungle, where there is not much underwood, and the mangrove swamps, but 
they also occur abundantly in gardens and plantations. They both have a fine 
clear- double note, which may constantly be heard in the morning and evening 
wherever they occur. They are decidedly noisy and often call all day, and 
on moonlight nights a great part of the night also”. 
P. megarhyncha Schl., which this excellent field naturalist cites as a close 
ally of the present species, is recognisable, as Hume shows (Str. F. VI, 242), 
by its much longer, slenderer and excessively straight-culmened bill, the duller 
and darker brown of the head, the absence of the black vertical stripe, the 
narrower black collar, etc. P. nympha T. & S. of China and Formosa, P. brachy- 
ura (L.) of India and Ceylon to Tenasserim and P. irena of Timor, Sula, Boano 
near Ceram and Ternate are distinguishable at a glance by their having the 
blue of the wings confined to the lesser coverts, and turquoise, instead of cam- 
panula-blue, and the white on the primaries restricted to a speculum. 
4 116. PITTA IRENA T emm. 
Buff-browed Pitta. 
a. “Breve irene” (I) Tenim., PI. Col. 591 (1836). 
h. Pitta crassirostris (1) Wall., P. Z. S. 1862, 188, 335, 339 (Sula); (2)kl, Ibis 1864, 104, 
106; (3) Finsch, Neu Guinea 1865, 167; (4) Gray, HL. 1869, I, 295, Nr. 4348; 
(5) Sclat, Cat. B. XIV, 1888, 427. 
c. Pitta braehyura (I) Schl. (nec Linn.), Yog. Xed. Ind. Pitt. 1863, 13, 33. pi. 3, fig. 2, 3; 
(2) id., Mus. P.-B. Pitt. 1863, 1 1; (3) id., Eev. Pitt. 1874, 14. 
