628 



Suborder II. DIDI. 



(Cf. Strickland 6f Melville, The Dodo and its Kindred, or the History, 

 Affinities, and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire, and other extinct 

 Birds of the Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon, 

 pp. 1-141, pis. xv. London, 1848.) 



This suborder includes very large and massively built forms, 

 agreeing with the Columbce in the truncation of the angle of the 

 mandible, but with the extremity of the cranial rostrum strongly 

 hooked. They are incapable of flight, the wing-bones being small, 

 the carina of the sternum aborted, and the coracoidal grooves 

 shallow and separated from one another (LydekTc&r). According to 

 Huxley (P. Z. S. 1867, p. 434) they have no basipterygoid pro- 

 cesses. The nostrils are decidedly oblique. 



The birds of this suborder are all extinct, and were confined to 

 the Mascarene Islands of Mauritius, Reunion, and Rodriguez. 



Family 1. DIDID^E. 



Key to the Genera. 



a. Bill not longer than the head, slightly hooked, 



and the nasal and maxillary processes of the 

 prreniaxillpe diverging anteriorly ; the frontal 

 region flat, with but little cancellous tissue. 

 Coracoid stout. Manus armed with an ossi- 

 fied tuberosity. Neck and feet long. Delto- 

 pectoral crest of humerus aborted. Male 

 much larger than the female. (Lydekker.) . . 1. Pezophaps, p. 629. 



b. Bill longer than the head, deeply hooked, and 



the nasal and maxillary processes of the prse- 

 maxillaa converging anteriorly ; the front 

 region inflated into a subcorneal prominence 

 of cancellous tissue. Neck and feet shorter 

 than in Pezophaps. Delto- pectoral crest of 

 humerus distinct. (Lydekker.) 2. Didus, p. 632. 



