316 
Birds of Celebes: Caprimulgidae. 
157). It is therefore most likely that these African and Madagascar forms and 
the Indo -Australian JE. orientalis are sprung from ancestors belonging to some 
part of Asia, Africa, or Madagascar — at all events not to Australia. E. orien- 
talis, we may suppose, reached the East Indies by migration in winter from its 
northern haunts. Pursuing their way southwards, instead of northwards, some of 
them have become adapted to the different breeding-season and different period 
of migration of birds in Australia, and under this separation from the northern 
birds have begun to develop racial differences, such as we find in the typical 
Falco pereyrinus and the Australian F. peregriniis melanogenys, and much more 
strongly pronounced in the Australian inigTant Merops ornatus and the Indian 
migrant M. philippinus or in the xlustralian migTant Halcyon sancta and the East 
Indian resident Halcyon chloris. Furystomns crassirostris of the New Britain Group 
and New Guinea and its surrounding islands, and E. solomonensis do not appear 
to intergrade with E. orientalis which occurs in some of the same localities as the 
former, this being the resident form, the other, perhaps, solely or mainly a 
migrant. In the Great Sunda Islands, and the Burmese countries it is the opinion 
of Dr. Sharpe, that a resident form, distinguishable from the migrants from 
the north is coming into existence, but in some localities — among them Celebes 
— it appears that resident birds and migrants from north and south occur 
together and that a certain amount of interbreeding takes place, rendering exact 
nomenclature impossible. 
We may pause for a moment to think what theories on former physical 
geography a naturalist in the distant future might build up, when these races 
of E. orientalis may be supposed to have become resident and well differentiated 
species in India, the East Indies, Australia and New Zealand! 
MACROCHIRES. 
The Goatsuckers and Swifts, which catch their insect-prey on the wing 
{except Steatornis which feeds on fruit) and jiossess an enormous gape reaching 
to beneath the eyes or further, but a minute and weak bill, very long wings, 
small feet and tarsi. 
The tail-feathers are 10 in number; there are also 10 primaries in both 
(see, also, Hartert, Cat. B. XVI; Gadow in Bronn's Kl. & Ord.; Blanford, 
Fauna Br. Ind., Birds III, 162). 
FAMILY CAPRIMULGIDAE. 
'Ihe Goatsuckers are crepuscular or nocturnal in habits, wearing a nocturnal 
plumage — soft, with the pattern broken up and vermiculate, without bright 
