Birds of Celebes: Alcedinidae. 
277 
Variation. The specimens from Lembeh vary somewhat individually, some having the bases 
of the blue-tipped feathers of the head rufous, others most of them dusky, the latter 
specimens, with one exception fcj, have the scai)ulars duller and browner. These 
differences ai’e shared by the two unmature birds, there being one of each, distinguish- 
able as young by their partially dusky and shorter hills and absence of blue spots on 
tbe wing -coverts. The more red or dusky colours are probably differences of a 
sexual nature. 
This little Kingfisher was not discovered until 1863 — 1864, when von 
Rosenberg obtained the first specimens in the Province of Gorontalo; it is 
still a rare sjoecies in collections. Meyer remarks f4j: “I got this species near 
Manado, near Gorontalo, and at the waterfall of Maros, in South Celebes; but 
I did not procure many specimens, perhaps for the reason that it lives in the 
forest and is a small species. In May a living specimen was in my possession 
at Manado. The colours of this little species are very delicate. It is the 
loveliest Kingfisher of Celebes”. One of Dr. Guillemard’s specimens was, 
curiously enough, shot on the sea-coast at Wallace Bay, N. Celebes, ‘"on the 
lonely beach frequented by the Maleos (Megacephalon maleo) described by 
Wallace in his ‘Malay Archipelago’” (I, p. 413). 
In the foregoing article on Cegx wallacei attention was drawn to Dr. Sharpe’s 
remarks pointing out the interesting position occupied by Ceycopsis fallax. In 
the structure of the foot it is a connecting link between Ispidina (w’ith Myioceyx) 
of Africa and Madagascar and Ceyx of India and the East Indies; in plumage it is 
a connecting link between the red-backed section of Ceyx of India to the 
Lesser Sunda Islands, Borneo, and the Philippines, and the bine-backed 
section of Ceyx of Papuasia and the Moluccas to Sula and the Philippines. 
Further, from the extreme members of the red-backed divisions of Ceyx and 
of Ispidina to the blue-backed divisions of the same genera a gradual transition 
from the plumage of Calliakyon to that of Alcyone and Alcedo is seen. The 
little Ceycopsis fallax occupies a middle position. It appears to us that, when 
growing into adult ])lumage, the bird develops towards the AJcedo-iy-pe, rather than 
in the opposite direction, since the blue spangles on the head become brighter, 
bluer, better defined, and extended further back on the hind neck. A future 
worker on the Kingfishers will no doubt find more such indications ; the ijresent 
one is a hint — if it does not mislead us — that the blue-backed, Alcedo- 
like Ceyces are derived from the red-backed ones '). That is to say, the Ceyces, 
which are now found between the Philippines and the Solomon Islands, appear 
to be descended from those now known from India to the Philippines. 
It is hardly possible to say between which red-backed and which blue- 
backed Ceyx Ceycopsis fallax most immediately lies; we should place it between 
the red-backed Ceyx melanurns of Luzon and the blue-backed C. wallacei of Sula; 
Myioceyx of West Africa has also a good deal in common with it; but other 
ornithologists may think differently as to its nearest affinities. 
1) The young of Ispidina leucoyaster has most of the crown ferruginous (Sharpe, Oat. 194). 
