6 SHTJFELDT — OSTEOLOGY OF THE CUCKOOS. [Jan 4, 



while others, such as our Californian " Road Runner," are naturally 

 terrestrial habitues, and only occasionally alight in the larger trees. 

 Both Africa and Madagascar contain wonderfully interesting 

 Cuckoos, and other birds so closely related, that by some system- 

 atise^ they have been associated with them. 



Our own United States avifauna offers a number of some very 

 interesting species of the Cuculida, and these will be osteologically 

 treated in this memoir, and it is hoped that such characters as 

 their skeletons present may be eventually useful when our material 

 in the museums admits of a more extended morphological and taxo- 

 nomial study of the entire family. 



In lower California and Texas we have Crotaphaga sulcirostris, 

 and its ally C. ani in southern Florida. I have, thanks to Mr. 

 Lucas, of the U. S. National Museum, some material illustrating 

 the skeletons of both of these types. Through the southern parts 

 of southwestern United States we also find Geococcyx californianus, 

 — a large and interesting species of Ground Cuckoo. This species, 

 as stated above in my Introduction, I chose several years ago, to 

 present a paper upon its osteology, and it was published with three 

 Plates in the Journal of Anatomy of London. Finally, we have 

 several species of those typically American Cuckoos of the sub- 

 family Coccygince. They include the true Tree-cuckoos of the 

 genus Coccygus, and I have a number of skeletons of them, illus- 

 trating both adult and nestling forms. For one good skeleton of 

 an adult, I am indebted to Dr. W. S. Strode, of Bernadotte, and 

 to my son for an alcoholic nestling of Coccygus americanus. 



As a group, Huxley considered that the Coccygomorphce occupied 

 the central position of his Desmognathous division, and in a sub- 

 division of them (b) he included the Musophagidoz, Cuculidce, Buc- 

 conida, Rhampliastidcv , Capitonidaz, and Galbulidce, adding upon 

 another page that "Among the Cuculidce, Cuculus canorus is 

 devoid of basipterygoids ; the palatines are rounded off posterio- 

 externally; the internasal septum is well ossified and unites with 

 the maxillo-palatines." 



"In Geococcyx the principle of construction is quite the same; 

 but the postero-external angles of the palatines are distinctly indi- 

 cated, and the beak is produced into an elongated triangular form. 

 A slight oblique ridge marks off the flat surface of the maxillary 

 process of the palatine from the excavated body of the bone." (P. 

 Z. S., 1867, pp. 444 and 466.) 



