On the occurrence of Platalea regia, Gould on Celebes, Boeroe and Timor

While making the osteological catalogue of the birds of our Museum, I met with an imperfect skull of a spoonbill, which has been sent over from Celebes by von Rosenberg in the year 1864. The skull belongs to the black-billed australian spoonbill, Platalea regia Gould. This object is the bill of a bird mentioned by von Rosenberg in his general work on the Malay Archipelago ¹) and which was shot several years ago 2) in the rice-fields of the village Langowan, N. E. Celebes. Von Rosenberg mentions this bill under the obscure name of Platalea luzoniensis, saying that several examples of this species, killed on the Soela Islands, are in the collection of the Leyden Museum, while in his manuscript-list of the birds, collected by him on Celebes and sent in 1864 to our Museum, he says in addition to the above-named skull, that two specimens of Pl. luzoniensis were got by Hoedt on the Soela Islands. As we know, Meyer and Wiglesworth were already informed by Büttikofer ³), that in the Leyden Museum there is no Platalea whatever from the Soela Islands. The two authors therefore could only speak of a Platalea sp. observed on Celebes. fortunately now it is sure, that Platalea regia has occurred on Celebes.