338 
Birds of Celebes: Cypselidae. 
wall of the nest; here it is fixed so as to form at the side thereof a somewhat 
flat, longish, semicircular saucer, just large enough to contain the single egg. 
The walls of the nest are extremely thin, and delicate, scarcely thicker than 
parchment. They consist of feathers, some few hits of tree-lichens and small 
pieces of bark, which materials are glued together with a sticky vehicle, without 
doubt, as in the Collocaliae, the saliva of the bird; occasionally in these birds 
also the salivary glands swell remarkably at the time of reproduction. The 
smallness and fragility of the nest does not allow of the brooding bird sitting 
thereon. On the conti-ary, as I have repeatedly observed, it sits on the bough and 
covers the nest and the egg in it with the belly alone. The latter, with a length of 
25 mm and a maximum breadth of 19 mm, answers perfectly to the size of the bird. 
It it of regular, perfectly oval form, so that it is not possible to make out with cer- 
tainty a sharp or a blunt end. Its colour is a very pale sea-blue, which colour 
gets paler after blowing the egg, and then white, with faint tinges of blue. 
According to my observations the bird rears two broods a year, one immediately 
after the other, but rarely makes use of one and the same nest for this purpose. 
With such a low rate of reproduction, it can cause no surprise that this bird, 
though probably occurring all over Java, is nowhere very plentiful”. The nest 
of Macropteryx coronatus (Tick.) is very similarly described by Hume (Oates 
ed- Hume’s Nest and Eggs Ind. B. HI, 36). The nest oi Batrachostomus hodgsoni 
(Gray) is described in the same work (p. 40) as a circular pad barely 37-2 inches 
in diameter, about V 4 inch thick. This is placed on the upper surface of a hori- 
zontal bough, and receives one white egg. In this case, apparently, there would 
be nothing to prevent monkeys and other marauders from helping themselves to 
the white egg, but that Batrachostomus is a nocturnal bird and doubtless is sitting 
upon the nest all through the day. 
The genus Macropteryx, is most strongly represented in the Oriental Region, 
but ranges from India to the Solomon Islands. 
Macropteryx mystacea (Less.). Gray (HL. 1869, I, 65) mentions Celebes 
as a locality for this species, which ranges from Halmahera to the Solomons, and 
Rosenberg (Mai. Arch. 271) repeats this indication, doubtless derived from Gray 
(see W. Blasius, J. f. O. 1883, 125). There appears to be no proof of this species 
having ever been found in the Province. 
Macropteryx comata (Temm.). As Salvadori points out (Cat. Ucc. Borneo, 
1874, 124), Cassin indicates (Cat. Hirund. Mus. Philad. 1853, 15) individuals of 
this species from Celebes and Timor. The localities are repeated by Gray (1. c.), 
by von Rosenberg (1. c.) “Celebes”, and by Hartert (Cat. B. XVI, 518); hut in 
the case at least of Celebes no evidence of their correctness has been produced. 
