472 Birds of Celebes: Kectariniidae. 
Islands and H. porphyrolaema of S. Celebes and Togian, both of which it exceeds 
in size, while II. sangirensis differs in having the metallic throat coppery-bronze, 
not pansy-purple, with the mantle and under surface purplish or brownish black, 
not deep black slightly washed with bluish below. H. porphgrolaema has the 
metallic throat dark violet, as against the much redder — sometimes, according to 
the light, coppery — purple of H. taUutensis, and the metallic feathers do not extend 
on to the jugulum in the South Celebes bird. In our original description of 
H. talautensis a specimen labelled H. porpliyrolaema., but really belonging to a 
new and undescribed species, was erroneously brought into comparison with 
the Talaut bird under the name porphgrolaema. The metallic mantle of this 
specimen and its uniform steel-blue throat, without a submalar edging of a 
different tint, remove it to a different section of Ilermotimia, but as is mentioned, 
p. 465, it appears preferable for the present to abstain from giving it a name. 
Chalcostetha insignis (Jard.). The habitat of this species is Tenasserim 
and Malacca to Sumatra, Java, Billiton (Vorderman), Borneo and Palawan. 
Celebes has been included within its range in virtue of two specimens from 
V. Rosenberg identified by Briiggemann at first with Hermotimia porphgro- 
laema (Wall.), (Abh. Ver. Bremen 1876, V, 73), but afterwards ascertained by 
him to be this species (in Shelley’s Monogr. Nect. 89). Prof. W. Blasius 
(J. f. O. 1883, 158) received one of these specimens for examination and points 
out that it is labelled only “? Celebes”. We consider the locality almost cer- 
tainly erroneous. 
GENUS ANTHREPTES Sw. 
Bill a little longer than the cranium, or less, slightly decurved, keel of 
lower mandible straight, operculum of nostril naked; tail shorter than wing, 
square or slightly rounded; tarsus stout, with about 5 transverse scales. Form 
stouter and stronger than in the other Nectariniidae occurring in Celebes. 
Ethiopian and Indian Regions as far as Sula. 
188. ANTHREPTES MALACCENSIS (Scop.). 
Brown-throated Sun-bird. 
The most logical way of handling this species, with its puzzling intergrading 
local variations, seems to be to admit 3 subspecies where the more pronounced 
racial characters come to a head. The interconnecting races we prefer to indi- 
cate simply by a long hyphen connecting the names of the subspecies between 
which they lie. With the exception that we find them to be subspecies (accord- 
ing to the American definition) instead of species, the fair series in the Dresden 
Museum confirms the results of Capt. Shelley. The extremes seem to be: 
.1 
