454 MOMOTIDZ. 
Order COCCYGES. 
Suborder COCCYGES ANISODACTYLA. 
Fam, MOMOTID. 
Sclater, P. Z. 8S. 1857, p. 248; Maurie, Ibis, 1872, p. 383; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xvii. 
p. 313 (1892). 
The Momotide form a very homogeneous family of birds peculiar to the Neotropical 
Region. The nearest ally is no doubt the Iodide of the Greater Antilles, and a more 
remote relationship to the Alcedinide is hardly questioned. The chief connected 
memoirs on the family are three:—one by Mr. Sclater, published in 1857, in which 
four genera and seventeen species were admitted; one by Dr. Murie in 1872, in which 
the osteological characters of several species were examined, the genera admitted being 
also four, but not with the same limits as Mr. Sclater’s. The third memoir is by 
Mr. Sharpe, who, in the ‘Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,’ recognized seven 
genera and eighteen species. Unfortunately the key to the genera is, to a great extent, 
vitiated owing to a wrong estimate of the number of rectrices in several cases, and to 
the value placed on certain characters leading to an unnatural arrangement. 
In revising the family we think that six genera are as many as can be recognized, 
Urospatha merging with Baryphthengus, and we are in some doubt if Aspatha should 
be separated from Hylomanes. 
Five of these six genera have ten rectrices, Momotus alone having twelve. In 
Baryphthengus the antrorse loral feathers are longer than in any of the other genera 
and reach beyond the nostrils ; in Hylomanes they are shortest, Aspatha hardly differing. 
Other characters are concisely included in the following key :— 
A. Bill compressed, stout, serration of the tomia large. 
a. Rectrices 12 2. 2. 2. 1. ww ee ee eee ee ee )6Mo ores. 
b. Rectrices 10. 2. 2. 2... we. ee ee . .) OBattyrrrnencus. 
B. Bill wide, serration small ; rectrices 10. 
ce. Culmenrounded . . ........ +... =. =. . . Eumomora. 
d. Culmen flattened, serration of tomia minute . . . . . . . . Prionornis*. 
C. Bill moderate, tarsi relatively to the wing long ; rectrices 10. 
e. Tail longer than the wing, serration of tomia moderate . . . . . ASPATHA. 
Jf. Tail and wing subequal, serration of tomia small . . . . . . . Hyztomanes. 
In the above key it will be seen that no use is made of the presence or absence of 
spatules at the end of the two central rectrices. These spatules are now known to be 
produced by the birds themselves, the feathers in a natural state being at the most 
narrowed at the place where the webs are subsequently stripped off. In 1873 (P. Z. 8. 
* A name suggested by Mr. Sclater in place of his Prionirhynchus, which is preoccupied [Crustacea : 
Jacquinot and Lucas, Voy. au Péle Sud, Zool. iii. Crust. p- 8 (1853)}. 
