384 
Birds of Celebes: Muscicapidae. 
The type M. commutatus was indicated to have come from Manado, but 
it now appears most certain that the specimen was mislabelled and it probably 
came from Siao. The locality Great Sangi rests at present only upon a young 
specimen in the Dresden Museum, which, as Meyer has already said (2), may 
possibly prove to be not perfectly identical with the Siao birds. Siao, there- 
fore, is as yet the only positively ascertained locality for the species or race. 
Here it seems to be not uncommon, as our native collectors were able to send 
us the full complement of five specimens asked for. In Great Sangi, the bird 
was obtained neither by our native collectors nor by Dr. Platen. 
As compared with adult specimens of M. inornatus — one from Aru, two from 
(?) the Moluccas, four from Peling and Banggai, two from Djampea, and a large 
series from Talaut — M. commutatus is distinguishable by the somewhat darker grey 
of its plumage and its blacker edge of forehead and uirper corner of chin. 
Prof. W. Blasius rightly remarks that it seems to be a darker and larger variety 
of mornatus\ individuals appear, however, to vary a good deal in size. It is 
difficult to know how to treat of such a form as this; it might be preferable 
to view it as a subspecies of M. itiornatus, but that species is involved in much 
obscurity at present as regards its local variations, and its treatment as species 
and subspecies must be left to the future. 
The genus Monarcha is typical of the Australian and what Wallace terms 
the Austro-Malayan subregions. The occurrence of a form of M. inornatus in 
the Sangi Islands is a link between them and the Moluccas and Papuasia, hut 
the wide distribution of this species tends to show that is has spread its range 
recently by flight, and is has, therefore, nothing reliable to say for a former 
land-connection between Sangi and the Moluccas. 
The plumage of this bird has a curious resemblance to that of the adult 
male Monticola solitaria. 
136. MONARCHA INORNATUS (Gam.). 
Grey-and-rufous Plycatcher. 
a. Museicapa inornata (I) Gariiot, Voy. Ooqmlle, Zool. Atl. 1826, pi. 16, fig. 2. 
h. Drymophila cinerascens (I) Temm., PI. col. 1827, pi. 430, fig. 2. 
c. Monarcha cinerascens (1) Wall., P. Z. S. 1862, 335, 341. 
Monarcha inornatus {1) Sharpe, Cat. B. IV, 1879, 431; (2) Salvad., Om. Pap. 11, 1881, 
14; Agg. 1889, 71; {3} Tristr., Cat. Coll. B. 1889, 201; (4) M. & Wg., J. f. O. 1894, 
244; f5) iid., Ahh. Mus. Dresd. 1895, Nr. 9, p. 4; (6) iid., ib. 1896, Nr. 2, p. 14; 
(7J Hart., Nov. Zool. 1896, 173, 241. 
“Tabaheo mawora”, Talaut, Nat. Coll. 
“Tangkuis”, Peling; “Tangkuisi”, Banggai (Nat. Coll.). 
For full synonymy see Salvador! 2. 
Figures and descriptions. Garnot a I] Temminck b I] Sharpe 1, Salvador! 2. 
Adult. Like Monarcha commutatus (see anted], but the grey of the upper surface, throat, 
and chest, paler — the last-named parts ohve-grey as against almost mouse-grey. 
