430 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part II. 
marked genus, and which may have been derived, either from 
the Malayan or the Moluccan side of the Archipelago. Two 
peculiar genera of kingfishers — Monachalcyon and Cittura — seem 
allied, the former to the widespread Todiramphus and to the 
Caridonax of Lombok, the latter to the Australian Melidora. 
Another kingfisher, Ceycopsis, combines the characters of the 
Malayan Ceyx and the African Ispidina, and thus forms an 
example of an ancient generalised form analogous to what 
occurs among the mammalia. Streptocitta is a peculiar form 
allied to the magpies ; while Basilornis (found also in Ceram), 
Enodes, and Scissirostrum, are very peculiar starlings, the latter 
altogether unlike any other bird, and perhaps forming a distinct 
sub-family. Meropogon is a peculiar bee-eater, allied to the 
Malayan Nyctiornis ; Rhamphococyx is a modification of 
Phaenicophaes, a Malayan genus of cuckoos ; Prioniturus (found 
also in the Philippines) is a genus of parrots distinguished by 
raquet-formed tail feathers, altogether unique in the order; 
while Megacephalon is a remarkable and very isolated form of 
the Australian Megapodiidae, or mound-builders. 
Omitting those whose affinity may be pretty clearly traced to 
groups still inhabiting the islands of the western or the eastern 
half of the Archipelago, we find four birds which have no near 
allies at all, but appear to be either ancestral forms, or extreme 
modifications, of Asiatic or African birds — Basilornis, Enodes, 
Scissirostrum, Ceycopsis. These may fairly be associated with 
the baboon-ape, anoa, and babirusa, as indicating extreme 
antiquity and some communication with the Asiatic continent 
at a period when the forms of life and their geographical dis- 
tribution differed considerably from what they are at the 
present time. 
But here again we meet with exactly the same difficulty as 
in the mammalia, in the comparative poverty of the types of 
birds now inhabiting Celebes. Although the preponderance of 
affinity, especially in the case of its more ancient and peculiar 
forms, is undoubtedly with Asia rather than with Australia; 
yet, still more decidedly than in the case of the mammalia, are 
we forbidden to suppose that it ever formed a part of the old 
Asiatic continent, on account of the total absence of so many 
