232 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Hleliornis] surinamensis Jardine, ed. Wilson's Amer. Orn., iii, 1832, 204 ("acci- 

 dental summer visitant in the middle States"!). — Bonaparte, Consp. Gen. 

 Av., ii, 1857 [1855], 181. 



Hleliornisl fuUcarius Bonnateere, Enc. Meth., i, 1790, 65 (Surinam; Guiana). — 

 Eeichenbach, Handb., Fulicariae, 1850, pi. 114, figs. 1139, 1140.— Bonapabte, 

 Consp. Gen. Av., ii, 1857 [1855], 181. 



Heliornis fullcaria Reichenbach, Handb. Spec. Orn., 1852, p. xxii. 



Suborder Eurypygae: Sun-bitterns 



<EurypygoideiTe Stejnegee, Stand. Nat. Hist., iv, 1885, 115, in text (Eurypygidse+ 

 Rhinochetidre+Mesitidse). — SHurEiJ)T, Anat. Rec, ix, 1915, 70 (same families 

 included ) . 



<Eurypyg;B FItrbkingek, Unters. Morph. Syst. Vog., 1888, 1586 (Eurypygid.'Te+ 

 Rhinochetidse+Apatornithidse) . 



=Eurypygfe Sharpe, Rev. Rec. Att. Classif. Birds, 1891, 74 (Eurypygidse only) ; 

 Hand-list, i, 1899, xvii, 181. 



=Eurypygae Wetmore and Miller, Auk, xliii, 1926, 343. — Wetmore, Proc. U. S. 

 Nat. Mus., Ixxvi, art. 24, 1930, 4; Smiths. Misc. Coll., Ixxxix, No. 13, 1934, 

 6 ; xcix, No. 7, 1940, 6.— Peters, Checli-list Birds of World, ii, 1934, 214. 



Very thin-necked, fan-tailed, semiarboreal Gruiformes with 12 

 rectrices, 18 cervical vertebrae, cervical pterylosis without lateral 

 apteria, and with one pair (uropygial) of powder-down patches. 



Palate schizognathous, nares schizorhinal, pervious; no occipital 

 foramina, supraorbital depressions, nor basipterygoid processes: 

 metasternum 2-notched; furcula well developed, U-shaped; clavicles 

 well developed; spina externa sterni well developed; spina interna 

 absent; caeca well developed, moderately long; femorocaudal, acces- 

 sory femorocaudal, semitendinosus, and accessory semitendinosus 

 muscles all present; biceps slip present; oil gland present, nude; 

 deep plantar tendons of Type I; thigh muscle formula ABXY+ ; 

 primaries 10; secondaries aquincubital ; aftershaft present (but 

 small); nidification arboreal; egg spotted; young ptilopaedic, 

 nidicolous. 



The sun-bitterns constitute a single family peculiar to continental 

 tropical America, where they are represented by a single genus 

 {Eurypyga) containing one species with three subspecies, one in- 

 habiting Central America and trans- Andean northern South 

 America, as far as Ecuador, one ranging over cis-Andean tropical 

 South America, as far as Bolivia and central Brazil, and the last 

 restricted to south-central Peru. 



They inhabit the banks of the larger streams, and their habits 

 appear to be very little known.^ 



• For an account of the nesting of E. helias in the London Zoological Gardens, 

 see Bartlett, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1866, 76-78, pi. 9. 



