1901.] SHUFELDT — OSTEOLOGY OF THE CUCKOOS. 5 



though the figures to this memoir were not, as I say, here repro- 

 duced, I have, nevertheless, devoted one of my present plates to 

 the bones of Geococcyx, giving four of the skull, one of which has 

 never been published before ; a ventral view of the pelvis published 

 for the first time; and pelvic limb-bones of a subadult individual 

 to illustrate remarks in the text. These bones are given for the 

 purposes of comparison and reference. 



Again in the same journal last quoted I printed in October, 1886, 

 a brief " Osteological Note upon the Young of Geococcyx califor- 

 nianus (Lond. Vol. i, Pt. i, pp. 101-102), in which certain points 

 of interest referable to the tibio-tarsus were dwelt upon. 



A very general account of the entire structure of this species I 

 published still later on in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of 

 London (Apr. 1, 1887. Pt. iv, pp. 466-491, Pis. XLII-XLV, 2 

 wcc. in text) — that is, apart from a treatment of the skeleton, as 

 that had already been published, as stated above. The figures to 

 this memoir had been submitted the size of life, but were subse- 

 quently reduced, a fact that was noted, or rather record made of in 

 The Auk later on {Geococcyx californianus — A correction, Vol. iv, 

 No. 3, July, 1887, pp. 254, 255). After this date I referred to the 

 anatomy of the Coccyges in various places and in different publica- 

 tions, but gave no extensive work devoted exclusively to a study of 

 their osteology as a whole. 



In the present memoir I have brought together all the material 

 illustrating the osteology of the Cuckoos at my command, and have 

 described and compared it. I am indebted to Mr. Lucas for the 

 loan of some of this material from the collections of the United 

 States National Museum, where, unfortunately, they are very poor in 

 Cuckoo skeletons. The balance of what I have, has been either col- 

 lected by myself or for me by others. 



Representatives of the Suborder Coccyges are found in many 

 parts of the world, and Cuckoos present us, in the forms already 

 known to science, with a list of some one hundred and sixty or more 

 species, exhibiting great variation in structure, size, coloration and, 

 indeed, general morphology. Their peculiar habits of nidification 

 and other eccentricities that characterize them are known to ornithol- 

 ogists and ornithotomists alike, and need not be reviewed here in a 

 work upon their osteology. Some Cuckoos, the "Tree Cuckoos" 

 so-called, are arboreal types, rarely alighting upon the ground, 



