28 BARGANDER—BASIPTERYGOID PROCESSES 



Marshall (London: 1870-71, 4to), who divide the Family into 

 three subfamilies : — Pogonorhyncliinai, with 3 genera and 15 species; 

 Megalserninai, with 6 genera and 44 species ; and CapitoninEe, with 

 4 genera and 18 species. Since the appearance of that work one 

 new genus and some thirty new species have been described. 

 Supposing that the subfamilies above named be truly established, 

 it would seem that the Gapitoninse, of which members are now to be 

 found in the New World as well as in Africa and Asia, may from 

 its wide distribution be regarded as the most ancient, and next the 

 Pogonorhynchinse, inhabiting both America and Africa, while the 

 Megalseminx, restricted to Africa and Asia, aj)pears to be the most 

 modern subfamily, and two genera belonging to it, Megalsema and 

 Xantholszma are found in India and Ceylon. They are birds mostly 

 of a bright green plumage, some of them variegated, especially on 

 the head, with scarlet, violet, blue, or yellow — though others are 

 plainly coloured. All of them seem to live chiefly on fruit, but 

 insects occasionally form part of their food, and in captivity they 

 become carnivorous. They breed in holes of trees, laying white 

 eggs, and most, if not all of them, utter a clear ringing note, so loud 

 as to attract general attention. The cry of Xantholxma indica is 

 especially resonant • and, being accompanied by a peculiar motion 

 of the head, has obtained for the bird in some of the native languages 

 a name signifying COPPERSMITH, by which English rendering it is 

 also known to Anglo-Indians. 



BAKGrANDER or Bergander, a local name, of uncertain origin 

 and spelling, of the Sheld-drake. 



BARKER, a name locally applied, from their cry, to the Black- 

 tailed GoDWiT and the AvosET in the days when they inhabited 

 England. Albin, a very poor authority, figured under this name 

 what was certainly a Greenshank, though Montagu took it to be 

 Totanus fuscus, and hence an error has found its way {sub voce) into 

 Dr. Murray's New English Dictionary. 



BARLEY-BIRD, a name given in some parts to the Yellow 

 Wagtail, in others to the Wryneck — but in both cases from their 

 appearing at the time of barley-sowing. By some authors it is said, 

 but obviously in error, to be applied to the Siskin. 



BARWING, the Anglo-Indian name for birds of the genus 

 Actinodura, from the black bar or bars which the wings of most of 

 them present. The genus is usually placed in the ill-defined Family 

 Timeliidse. 



BASIPTEPvYGOID PROCESSES are a pair of bony outgrowths 

 on the right and left side of the body of the basisphenoid, forming 

 the principal articulation of the pterygoids with the basis cranii. 

 Such processes are well developed in all the Ratitae, Crypturi, 



