Birds of Celebes: Alcedinidae. 
283 
had been recorded; in “Ibis” 1889, 446; 1891, 484, Mr. Styan was able to refer 
to a single specimen killed at the mouth of the Yang-tse, and to another from 
Manchuria now in the British Museum. 
Meyer writes that in Celebes it is “generally found in bamboo brushes near 
rivers, generally several together. It is not a rare bird, but is not to be pro- 
cured without great patience. In the stomach I found fishes, ants, etc.” 
Davison (S. F. VI, 75) saw it most plentifully in Tenasserim on the coast, 
though it was also to be met with by inland creeks; in the Andamans Hume 
(S. F. II, 170) remarked that it affected the gloom of the mangrove swamps, 
and never visited the clearings or the open coast; in Labuan Whitehead speaks 
of it as a swamp-loving species, frequenting the beds of Nipa palms near the 
coast (Ibis, 1890, 20). 
CalUalcyon coromanda is most likely an ancient form. We agree with Dr. 
Sharpe in regarding it as the nearest existing Hakyon-ioxm having affinity to 
the red-backed group of Ceyx, and it is of some interest to observe that the 
distribution of that group and of C. coromanda is somewhat similar; namely, 
neither pass into the Australian Ilegio.n: but Callialcyon occurs also in China 
and Japan, where Ceyx does not. The close similarity of the young Callialcyon 
to the adult must not be cited as a token of antiquity; though it is hardly 
reasonable to regard the slightly differing local races of Callialcyon as very 
ancient, the young nevertheless appear to resemble their parents more closely 
than they do one another. In other w'ords, the influence of the parents is 
superimposed upon the ancestral qualities, and obscures them — to what extent 
we do not know. The young Callialcyon described by Sharpe (i 1) appears to 
correspond with a pale race, while our two from Siao seem by comparison as 
if saturated with a deeper rufous tint below and with magenta above. All, 
however, agree in having the under parts crossed with wavy lines of dusky 
brown . 
In view of its slight differentiation as a subspecies, it appears hardly 
possible to regard C. coromanda rufa as other than a recent immigrant to the 
Celebesian Province from some part of the Sunda Islands or Philippines. The 
next species. Halcyon pileata^ w'hich has the same distribution, is a much more 
thorough-going migrant than C. coromanda now is. AVe conceive that this species 
may have relinquished the habit of migration in comparatively recent times. 
89. HALCYON PILEATA (Bodd.). 
Black-capped Kingfisher. 
a. Alcedo pileata (1) Bodd., Tabl. PI. Enl. 1783, p. 41; (2) v. Musschenbr., N. T. Ned. Ind. 
1870 XXXVI, 377. 
h. Halcyoa atricapilla (Gm. 1788), ( 1 ) Gould, B. Asia 1860, I, pi. 45; ( 2 ) Jerd., B. Ind. 
1862, 226; ( 3 ) Hume; Str. P. 1874, H, 168; 1876, IV, 287. 
36 * 
