BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA 



227 



Podia (emendation) Swainson, Classif. Birds, ii, 1837, 192. 



Plotoides Beooices, Mus. Brookesianum, 1830, 109. (Type, Plotus surinamen^is 

 Gmelin=Colyml)ii.s fiilica Boddaert.) 



Small Heliornithidae (length about 300 mm.) with feet relatively 

 small and weak (the tarsus less than one-fifth as long as wing, de- 

 cidedly shorter than the relatively small slender bill, the latter not 

 longer than head) ; anterior toes extensively webbed, the web between 

 middle and outer toes extending for entire length of first two phal- 

 anges of the former ; rectrices broad, soft terminally, and toes banded 

 with black and yellow. 



Bill about as long as head, decidely longer than tarsus, its depth 

 at posterior end of nostril equal to a little less than one-fourth the 



Figure 15. — Heliornis fulica. 



length of exposed culmen and nearly twice its width at samei point; 

 cuhnen nearly straight for basal half or more, thence gently de- 

 curved to tip ; maxillary tomium gently convex for basal half, faintly 

 concave for distal half, very faintly notched subtemiinally ; gonys 

 straight, slightly ascending, about half as long as mandibular rami, 

 the mandible acute at tip ; nostril longitudinally elliptical, pervious, 

 its anterior end about midway between rictus and tip of maxilla, 

 its poterior end separated from loral feathering by a space nearly 

 equal in length to depth of bill at posterior end of nostril; latero- 

 frontal feathering forming a distinct angle on each side of culmen, 

 thence extending in a straight or faintly convex line downward and 

 backward to rictus: malar antia very slightly posterior to latero- 



