The distributional history of Coracina in the Indo-Australian Archipelago

Recently RIPLEY (1941) has prepared a systematic revision of the Indo-Australian members of the genus Coracina (Cuckoo-Shrike), which for a considerable time had been in a state of great confusion. RYPLEY’s new arrangement represents a noteworthy step in the appreciation of the systematics of this difficult genus. Since only taxonomy and representative distribution have been taken into account by RIPLEY, resulting in the arrangement of 12 species into 3 superspecies and 7 isolated forms, certain problems still remain unsettled. It is the purpose of this paper to deal with some of these problems and to propose an arrangement of the Indo-Australian forms of Coracina not only in accordance with their taxonomy, but also with the history of their distribution. Special attention has been praid to the relative length and shape of the bill, which character RIPLEY almost entirely neglected. According to this method we have arrived at a somewhat different grouping, as will be discussed below. This may be also the place to notice that, contrary to a recent opinion, brought forward by DELACOUR (1946) and others, we still consider the limits of the genus Coracina as opposed to Edolisoma, sufficiently defined by the different shapes of the bill.