in the Order Strepitores. 593 



these birds are necessitated to throw up their food, and catch 

 it in the throat ; which is not improbable. The same, how- 

 ever, is asserted by Bechstein of the hoopoes, which I have 

 never seen do so : the latter generally transfer their food to 

 the throat by a jerk of the head, just as a godwit may be seen 

 to pick up barley. The habit of throwing up the food and 

 catching it in a favourable position for deglutition, is also more 

 or less observable in the rollers, toucans, the larger Tyranni- 

 dce,* the storks and some allied genera, and the cormorants, 

 gannets, tachypete, and probably all other Totipalmati of 

 Cuvier ; the whole of which have the tongue either extreme- 

 ly short, or of a form unfit to assist in turning the food back- 

 wards. The struthious birds, likewise, are analogously oblig- 

 ed to jerk the head, as stated of the godwits. 



II. — Arculirostres (or with slightly arcuated bills) . The hoo- 

 poes present so many peculiar characters, that I have no he- 

 sitation in assigning them this tribal rank in the system : they 

 cannot be more nearly approximated to any other group. — 

 From the creepers, and all other Cantores, they are at once 

 widely separated by their anatomy, which, as before stated, 

 brings them conclusively within the pale of the Strepitores. 

 The sternum is narrow across, and emarginated somewhat as 

 in the Cantores, though less angularly ; but there is no fur- 

 ther resemblance whatever to the invariable conformation ob- 

 servable throughout that extensive order : the medial ridge of 

 this bone is considerably developed, and rounded anteriorly, 

 (differing much in form from that of the hornbills, wherein 

 this process is low, and comparatively angular) ; the costal 

 processes are not dilated as in the Cantores ; neither does 

 the manubrial process, to which the coracoid ligaments are 

 attached, protrude so as to assume that elongated, obliquely 

 truncate, bifurcate form, so constant in all those birds : again, 

 the perpendicular appendage to the furcula, found in all the 

 Cantores, is wanting in the hoopoes : their vocal organ is 

 simple ; " the stomach," according to Mr. Selby, " is a mem- 

 branous bag ; intestines of considerable diameter, but short, " 

 and doubtless without cwca : and finally the external charac- 

 ter of possessing only ten tail-feathers, as already noticed, 

 while every cantorial bird has twelve, — all combine to sepa- 

 rate this curious genus from the Certhiadce, Promeropidce, 

 &c, with which it has been associated by every preceding 

 systematist, and intimate its true position to be as here as- 

 signed, f 



* Nuttall. 

 f I believe there is no eantorial bird which retains its nestling* clothing 



3 m 4 



