534 CUCULIDZ. 
from Panama was in Seebohm’s collection. These four birds are all that we know with 
certainty as coming from Central America; but in the Rivoli collection, now the 
property of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is, as Lawrence has 
pointed out, a bird of this species said to have come from Mexico, but without further 
particulars. Though doubtless found in Costa Rica, it has as yet escaped the notice of 
the careful collectors who have worked in that country during the last thirty years. 
The extension of the range of N. salvini into South America is shown by a bird of 
Colombian origin in the British Museum, and by a specimen procured by Buckley on 
the Rio Cotopaza in Eastern Ecuador. 
The species most nearly allied to N. salvini is WN. geoffroyi of South Brazil, from 
which it may be distinguished by the lilac tint of the back, upper tail-coverts, and 
wings, and by other slight characters. 
Of the habits of WV. salvini nothing has been recorded. It is evidently a rare bird, 
as is each of the other members of the genus. 
GEOCOCCYX. 
Geococcyz, Wagler, Isis, 1831, p. 524; Shelley, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xix. p. 419. 
A genus containing two closely allied but distinct species, remarkable amongst the 
Cuckoos of America for their form, colour, and habits. They belong to the group of 
Ground-Cuckoos, as they pass their time mostly on the ground and run with great 
swiftness. Their food consists of insects, and they build in low bushes and rear their 
own broods. 
The range of Geococcyx extends from Nicaragua northwards, and passes beyond our. 
northern limit into the frontier States of North America. 
Both species are of large size with long tails, and the plumage of the upper surface 
distinctly striated with light markings upon a dark purple-black ground. The bill is 
long, the culmen nearly straight towards the base, but curving downwards rather 
abruptly towards the tip; the nostrils are oval and placed at the lower edge of the 
nasal fossa, which is feathered over nearly the whole of its surface; surrounding the 
orbit is a brightly coloured space, which ends posteriorly in a scarlet patch; the 
eyelashes are strong, simple, flattened bristles; the tarsi are long, the toes short, and 
the tibiz clothed with short feathers; the tail long and cuneate, the lateral feathers 
reaching to about two-thirds of the whole length. 
1. Geococcyx californianus. 
? Phasianus mexicanus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 741°. 
Geococcyx mexicanus, Strickl. Ann. & Mag. N. H. 1842, viii. p. 5447; Cassin, Birds Cal. & Tex. 
p- 218, t. 836°; Scl. P. Z. 8. 1857, p. 205°; 1864, p. 177°; Dugés, La Nat. i. p. 139°; 
Lawr. Mem. Bost. Soc. N. H. ii. p. 293"; Sumichrast, La Nat. v. p. 239°; Salv. Cat. 
Strickl, Coll. p. 442°; Shelley, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xix. p. 419°. 
