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Show 522 LORD WALDEN ON PHILIPPINE BIRDS. [June 3, French traveller Sonnerat. He described and figured sixty-five species as having been obtained by him when in the Philippines ; but recent researches tend to prove that only thirty are inhabitants of that archipelago. Several of his species remain to this day undetermined ; yet the descriptions and figures were probably taken from actual specimens ; for, although frequently most inaccurate in the localities assigned, Sonnerat does not appear, like Levaillant, to have wilfully described manufactured species and attributed false habitats. Besides the species made known in his ' Voyage to New Guinea,' Sonnerat brought to Paris several Philippine specimens, which were subsequently described by Buffon or by Montbeillard, and figured by D'Aubenton. On many of the Brissonian descriptions Linnaeus founded titles; and to nearly all the plates in Sonnerat's work Scopoli, and after him Gmelin, gave binomial- designations ; while some of the species described in the ' Histoire Naturelle,' or figured in the ' Planches Enluminees,' received names from either Ludwig Statius Miiller, Gmelin, or Latham, and in some cases from all of these writers. Generally subsequent authors named the species they described; and consequently little difficulty is encountered in the endeavour to recognize their species. " The first and only attempt to construct a complete list of the Philippine avifauna was made by Dr. v. Martens, to whom I have already alluded. That learned naturalist enumerates 194* species. From these I have been obliged to deduct 24,-4 from being undeterminable, 7 because they are not found in the Philippines, 2 because the Philippine habitat is not satisfactorily established, and 11 because they bear as distinctive titles the synonyms of species already catalogued under other titles. " Thus the list is reduced to 170 species, to which I have been able to add only 46, making the number of authentically known Philippine birds 216. This number is small, and may be eventually increased when the archipelago has been more completely investigated. Yet it may be fairly doubted whether the Philippines will ever be found to be so rich in species as the remainder of the Indo- Malayan subregion. Our knowledge of this avifauna is not sufficient to support any general conclusions; but enough is known to establish the fact that the Philippine archipelago, like Celebes, is a border land linking, as it were, the Papuan and Indian regions. As we quit the mainland of the Indian region in the south-east, it is well known that the Indo-Ethiopian types diminish in number, and in the Philippines, as in Celebes, they may be said to be at their minimum. But along with them many Indo-Malayan types also disappear from both these insular areas ; while, on the other hand, they are replaced by peculiarly Papuan generic forms, and by a iew peculiar forms not in numbers sufficient to balance the absence of the Indo-Ethiopian and the Indo-Malayan. W e consequently find an ornis more anomalous in its admixture of forms, but poorer as regards species. So far as we know, it may be asserted that, after * The numbering reaches to only 192; but Basylophus cumingi, although catalogued, is not numbered, and the number 154 is repeated. |
