Birds of Celebes: Melipbagidae. 
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cup-shaped, rather flimsily constructed of grass-stems, hair, spiders’ webs, etc. 
and often placed in the fork of a tree or bush. In their habits the Myzomelae 
seem to resemble the other small Honey-suckers, frequenting flowering shrubs 
and trees, not apparently so much for the sake of the nectar of the flowers as 
for the insects attracted thereby . 
GENUS MELILESTES Salyad. 
Bill about twice as long as the cranium or more, decurved, culmen high 
and sharp, bill as high as broad across the nostrils; nostrils linear, imperfectly 
operculated; tomia terminally serrated, somewhat irregularly; wing longer than 
tail primary short, 2“'* primary about as long as the secondaries; tail square; 
tarsus about V. the wiug-leugth, or a Uttle more. 
Found in Papuasia and Celebes. 
* 190. MELILESTES OELEBENSIS M. &Wg. 
Brown Honey-sucker. 
Plate XXVIII. 
This very distinct species is known at present only from the mountains of 
the north and of the south of Celebes, where it differs racially, but it is not 
advisable to divide it into two species, as the difference is only a question of 
shades of colour, w'hich are almost certain to be found to merge into one 
another in some intermediate part of Celebes. 
1. The typical Melilestes celebensis. 
« Arachnothera? celebensis {1) M.&Wg., Abh. Mas. Dresd. 1894-95, Nr. 4, p. 2. 
h. Melilestes celebensis {1] M.&Wg., t. c. Nr. 8, p. 12; {2) Hart., Nov. Zool. 1896, 237. 
Diamosis lighter in colour; general colom above almost dark tawny-oHve with black 
centre streaks' below greyish sepia, with buff-brown to buff edges to the feathers. 
Adult. Abote d»k’gr«ii* towuy-olivu, with blucldth mmal stteub to the feathers; 
wings and tail blackish, with edgings of the colour of the back, or, on the primaries, 
r htei-* below greyish sepia, with broad margins to the feathers of bronmish buff, 
lifdit tawny-olive, becoming whiter on the abdomen; flanks and thighs more 
unifom tawny-ohve;’ remiges below dusky, the inner edges where they rest upon 
the body hght fawn-colour, deeper on under wing-coverts, some of which are slightly 
1 / c 1 ‘>00 m from the declivity of Mt. Manimporok towards the Soputan 
SrN 0 ;iebes,“ 22 . April, 1895: P. & P. Sarasin: 0 15690). 
’“Bare sldn around the eye light yellowish, posteriorly rather darker yeUow” (S.). 
Similar to the male, but smaUer. “Bill black; feet and legs grey, feet below 
yellow;' iris brown; bare skin round the eye yellow” ($, type. Bone Mts. 1100 m, 
15. Jan., 1894; P. & P- S.). 
Meyer * Wiglesworth. Birds of Celebes (Not. 10th 1897). 
Female 
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