ihut connect the Orders and Families of Birds, 453 



' Hamphastida. 



Psittacidce, Leach. 

 PicidcE, Leach. 

 Certhiadce. 

 CicculidcE, Leach. 



'Commencing our examination of the present tribe with the 

 family of Ramphastidce, we may observe that it is composed of 

 the genera Ramphastos, Linn., and Pteroglossus, 111., which fill 

 up the same station in the New World that Buceros, the group 

 which we have just quitted, maintains in the Old. To these ge- 

 nera we have already seen that Scythrops may be added, which 

 appears equally assimilated to both groups, and thus to supply 

 their place in that new division of the globe, the continent of 

 Australasia. This genus, it may be observed, unites the present 

 family with the larger and more prominent billed Cuculida, 

 which meet it at the other extremity of the tribe : and here in 

 this direction, the succession of affinities appears established. 

 The immediate connexion, however, of Ramphastos with the 

 succeeding group of Psittacidce is not so evident. These fami- 

 lies are placed next to each other by all systematic writers ; and 

 I decidedly concur in the general views which bring them into 

 neighbouring groups. But at present I am acquainted with no 

 forms which intimately connect them, and soften doM^n the im- 

 portant difference observable in the bills and tongues of these 

 birds. This is one of the greatest chasms which interfere with 

 the continuity of our chain of affinities. I might indeed hazard 

 some suggestions* as to the mode in which this difficulty may 



* I might particularly mention the Trogoti, Linn., as a bird, whose bill, serrated, but 

 at the same time short and hooked, seems to give it a similitude to each of these groups. 

 We know but little of this genus, although it abounds both in the Old and New World, 

 and that little is altogether insufficient to afford us any information as to its actual 

 affinities. 



3 N 2 be 



