OCR Text |
Show 248 DR. F. H. H. GUILLEMARD ON BIRDS COLLECTED [Mar. 1 7, add considerably. On the 20th of April, 1883, I arrived at Sulu Island in Mr. Kettlewell's vacht ' Marchesa,' then on her way to New Guinea, and stayed there over a month, calling again at the group for a few days on our return journey. During these two visits our party collected over the whole of the western half of Sulu Island, and also visited Pangasinan, Lapac, Siassi, and Tawi-tawi, though, owing to our limited time on these latter islands, we were unable to obtain many specimens. Our total collection numbered over 200 individuals of 60 different species. The total number of species recorded by Mr. Sharpe from the Sulu group is 20. These I have had to reduce by four- Cuculus fucatus, Carpophaga pickeringi, Calcenas nicobarica, and Gallus stramineicollis. The three first are given on the authority of Cassin, who records them as from " Mangsi, one of the Sooloo Islands." This has naturally led Mr. Sharpe astray. Mangsi, though no doubt originally under the jurisdiction of the Sultans of Sulu, who used at one time to own a considerable portion of Borneo, is not one of the Sulu group at all, but is an island off the N . coast of Borneo, lying between Banguey and Balabac. It is 200 miles from the nearest island of the Sulu Archipelago, and its avifauna is doubtless directly derived from the adjacent mainland. Gallus stramineicollis is, I have no doubt, merely the result of the crossing of G. bankiva with the common fowl. All the natives from whom I inquired agreed that there is but one species of Jungle-fowl on the islands; and I have myself had abundant evidence of the freedom with which it interbreeds with the domestic bird. There thus remain 16 species of presumed authenticity in Mr. Sharpe's list; and to these I have been able to add 49 others, bringing the full total up to 65 species. I do not pretend that this is by any means an exhaustive list, even of Sulu Island alone, still less of the other islands of the Archipelago, but, as will be seen, it is more than sufficient to show the main source from which the bird-life of that group is derived. If from the 65 species above mentioned we deduct those birds, for the most part of wide distribution, which are common alike to Borneo and the Philippines, we have 39 species left. Of these, two are new species described in the following pages, and three (Dicrurus pectoralis \ Ptilopus formosus, and Artamides pollens) are from the Celebes group and the Ke Islands respectively. One, Carpophaga pickeringi, though obtained by Cassin from Mangsi, is new to Sulu. Of the rest, three are presumably Bornean, as against no less than 30 Philippine species unrecorded from the former country. The three Bornean birds-Scops rufescens, Iyngipicus ramsayi, and Gerygone flaveola-demand a moment's consideration. The Sulu habitat of the first-named species rests on a single individual which was believed to have been shot on Sulu Island by Mr. Bur-bidge. Mr. Sharpe informs me that the bird reached him unlabelled, and together with other birds shot by Mr. Burbidge in North 1 Dicrurus pectm-alis has hitherto only been recorded by Wallace from the Sulla Islands, and by Bruijn from the Obi group. |