Brush-Turkeys on the Smaller Islands North of Celebes

Abstract

THE reviewer of Dr. Hickson's book, “A Naturalist in North Celebes” (March 20, p. 458), believes that the brush-turkey or moleo, Megacephalon maleo, has never been recorded as occurring in the smaller islands north of Celebes. I beg to remark that in the year 1879 I recorded this species from Siao, and in the year 1884 from Great Sangi, on both of which islands, besides, occurs a Megapodius peculiar to them, viz. M. sanghirensis, Schlegel, representing there M. gilberti, Gray, from Celebes (see the Ibis, 1879, p. 139; Isis, 1884, pp. 6 and 53, &c.). Perhaps Mr. Guillemard did not comprise Siao and Great Sangi under the head of “smaller islands,” but Dr. Hickson himself (p. 95) records two brush-turkeys from the smaller island of Tagulandang, a larger and a smaller one, and these must be Megacephalon maleo and a Megapodius. Tagulandang is situated between Celebes and Siao, and much nearer to the latter island. From the volcano islet of Ruang, opposite and within about a: mile from Tagulandang, he only records (p. 41) one brush-turkey, and this, of course, may be either the Megacephalon or a Megapoadius, if both do not occur, as appears rather probable. When I visited Ruang in 1871 after the heavy eruption in March of that year (see NATURE, vol. iv. p. 286), nearly the whole of its forest was destroyed and burnt down, and I do not believe that a living brush-turkey then remained on the islet; but it has since been repeopled from its near neighbour, Tagulandang, where both species occur, and therefore, if the one could reach Ruang, the other may have reached it too. This is of no consequence at all. Dr. Hickson's following remark as to brush-turkeys on Tagulandang (p. 95), “The larger bird is perhaps the Megapodius sanghirensis of Schlegel, a brush turkey, which is bigger than the Megacephalon, and extends over the Sangir Islands,” contains a mistake, as M. sanghirensis is much smaller than Megacephalon maleo. The reviewer corrects, by the way, my calling the Celebean whimbrel Numenius phæopus, saying that it is probably N. uropygialis, but these two names are synonymical, cf. for instance, Salvadori, Orn. Pap., iii., 332, 1882, sub N. variegatus. As to its nesting on small trees “small brushes” were intended to be implied (see Legge, “Birds of Ceylon,” 1880, p. 913).