0)1 Dr. Jcrdou's ' Birds uf India.' 357 



or less on fruit, and others {various pied species) on oleaginous 

 seeds ; but Jynx I believe to be purely insectivorous, and mainly 

 an ant-devourer. I am rather surprised that this species did not 

 fall under the observation of Herr Radde in Eastern Siberia. 



190. Indicator xa.nthonotus. 



This rare bird is beautifully represented in one of Mr. 

 Hodgson's drawings in the British Museum, one of the figures 

 clinging (Woodpecker-like) to the bark of a tree. 



Megal.emid.e. — The birds of this»family hop from twig to 

 twig, like the ordinary Passeres, and should not be habitually 

 represented clinging to the bole of a tree as Mr. Gould figures 

 Megalcema nuchalis (B. As. pt. xvi.) — a remnant of the old error 

 of subordinating them to the PicidcB. The Megalmnidoi (or Cufi- 

 tonidce) have a much nearer affinity to the Ramphastida than they 

 have to the Picidce. Apart from the anatomical conformity, it 

 may be remarked that if the larger Toucans were unknown, the 

 species of AulacorJiamphus and such a bird as Selenidera laiigs- 

 dorffi, (Gould, Mon. Rhamphastidce, pi. 33) would surely have been 

 unhesitatingly assigned to the group of Barbets, to say nought 

 of such forms as the Malayan Calorhamphus and the South 

 American Tetragonops (Ibis, 1861, pi. vi., 1864, pi. x.) ; or 

 compare with the forms brought together under Cuculidce (as 

 Scythrops, Rhinortlia, Phcenicophceus, Centropus, Crotophaga, 

 Saurothera, Cultrides, Cuua, &c.), or those collated under 

 Capriinulgidce (as JEgotheles, Pudargus, Steatornis, Nyctihius, and 

 Caprimulgus^) ! Skeletons of Toucan and Barbet are figured 

 in Sir William Jardine's 'Contributions to Ornithology' (pis. 53 

 and 54) . I remember once winging a Wryneck, and placing 

 it on the perpendicular trunk of a tree, which it immediately 

 ascended so rapidly, with vigorous springs, and pressing its soft 

 tail against the bark, that I nearly lost it; and I have since 



* The anatomy of the genus Butrachostomus is very different from that 

 of Caprimulgus. The stomach is a highly muscular gizzard, as is that of 

 Nyctihius, and there is a small gall-bladder. The sternum is small, sub- 

 quadrate, with but a slight keel, aud/owr deep emarginations behind; the 

 coracoids long and slender, and furcula like that of Ciiprimulgus, but more 

 slender. 



N.S. VOL. II. 2 B 



