TS, Ten
ARTAMUS MONACHUS, Temm.
Hooded Wood-Swallow.
Artamus monachus, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 343 (1850, ex Temm.).—Wallace, Ibis, 1860, p. 141— Id.
P. Z. S. 1862, p. 340.—Gray, Hand-1. Birds, i. p. 289. no. 4272 (1869).—Walden, Trans. Zool. Soc.
viii. p. 67, pi. vi. fig. 1 (1872).
I t might be supposed by some o f my readers, owing to my having figured the present species perched
upon a stranded snag in the middle o f a stream, accompanied by a sleepy floating alligator, that this was
the usual habitat of one or other o f this family o f birds. Such, however, is not the c a se ; for I myself have
never seen them haunting rivers. But I was reading a short time ago an account of a voyage in the
Moluccas; and Artamus was described as having been observed in the position drawn by m e ; so I have
endeavoured to reproduce some idea o f the scene.
I have always felt an especial interest in the genus Artamus, as I have probably seen more species o f the
genus in their native haunts than any man living; and I have had the good fortune to describe no less than
five out o f the seventeen o r eighteen known. Although the Australian Wood-Swallows are of very varied
coloration, they cannot be considered so fine as some o f the insular species, such as A . maximus, A. insignis,
o r the subject o f the present article, A . monachus. These are certainly the most remarkable members of
the genus Artamus, and surpass the other species iu size and beauty.
In the ‘ Birds of Australia’ I have given details of the habits o f the Wood-Swallows; and doubtless the
economy o f all is very similar. The present bird is found only in the island o f Celebes and the adjoining
«•roup o f the Sula Islands, which lie to the eastward. Mr. Wallace says th at it is found in the mountain
districts o f North Celebes; and Lord Tweeddale, in his well-known paper on the birds o f this island, points
out th at the Sula specimens do not quite agree with Bonaparte’s original diagnosis of the species. I have,
however, the good fortune to possess a skin from Celebes itself, sent to me in exchange from the Leiden
Museum; and I have compared it with Sula-Island specimens, and cannot find any difference in coloration,
though the Celebes bird is rath er longer in the wing; there can, I think, be no doubt as to their identity.
The accompanying description is taken from a female bird in my own collection, received from the Leiden
Museum, and marked as having been obtained in Celebes by Heer von Duivenbode; but as the sexes are
alike, the following colour will suffice for b o th :—
Above white from the hind neck to the tail, and including the scapulars ; head and neck all round, including
the throat, light umber brown, darker on the crown ; least and median wing-coverts umber brown,
the rest o f the wing dark ashy brown; tail ashy brown; under surface of body from the fore neck
downwards, and including the thighs and under wing- and tail-coverts, pure w h ite ; edge of wing ashy
brown; quills grey below, whitish along the inner web. Total length 7'5 inches, culmen 1*05, wing 6-3,
tail 2*9, tarsus 0*75.
The principal figure in the Plate is drawn from the before-mentioned specimen, and represents the species
of the size o f life.