252 FIN FOOT 



on them are likely to be correct ; others are further apart, and the 

 links which connect them, if not altogether missing, can but be 

 surmised. 



FI?^FOOT, Latham's name in 1824 {Gen. Hid. B. x. ix 10) for 

 two birds which he then rightly associated. One of them from 

 America, the size of a small Teal, had been long known, and 

 formerly referred by him to the genus Flotus (Snake-bird), while 

 Pennant in 1776, in Peter Brown's Illustrations of Zoology (pi. 39, 

 p. 98), had described it as the " Surinam Tern," and it was figured 

 by Daubenton (P/. enl. 893) and described in 1781 by BufFon as the 



Grebe- Foidque. In 1790 the ill-fated 

 Bonnaterre established the genus Heli- 

 oniis ^ for it. Its affinities remained 

 uncertain until the publication in 1839 

 of Brandt's Beitrclge zuv Kenntniss cler 

 NaturgeschicMe der Vogcl, communicated 

 to the Academy of St. Petersburg, 

 wherein he shewed (pp. 117-122) that 

 Heliorn.s. (After swainson.) ^hey Were rather towards the Rails; 



but people have been slow to admit the 

 force of his osteological evidence, though it has since been confirmed 

 in the case of another species of the group by Jerdon [B. Iiul. iii. p. 

 721). In the meanwhile Prince Maximilian of Wied had in 1832 

 published his observations on the bird's habits (Beitr. zur Naturgesch. 

 Brasilien, iv, pp. 827, 828), and very curious some of them are, for 

 he says that he himself had shot a cock-bird, under the wings of 

 which were two newly-hatched, naked young. The old birds swim 

 and dive adroitly, but their flight is heavy, though they run swiftly 

 on land, and they are addicted to perching on trees. The proper 

 name of this species is Heliornis fidica, though it appears in some 

 works as I'odoa surinamensis. It has an extensive range in the 

 Neotropical Region from Guatemala; to Paraguay [Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1868, p. 469); but it is not found in the Patagonian Subregion. 



The second species described, as above stated, by Latham, and 

 as he thought for the first time, is a much larger bird from 

 Western Africa, made known Ijy Vieillot in 1817 {K Did. d'Hist. 

 Nat. ed. 2, xiv. p. 277) as Heliornis sevegnlensis, but in 1831 Lesson 

 put it in a genus by itself which he called Podica. The differences 

 between them, though of no real importance, are yet sufficient to 

 warrant the separation ; and this P. senegalensis is said to be repre- 

 sented on the opposite side of the African continent by a yet 

 bigger species, P. 2-)etersi or mosamlicana, ranging from Xatal north- 



^ This name seem;? to have arisen from a mistake of Latham's {Synops. B. iii. 

 p. 626) who ill 1785 .supposed the " Oiscau de Soleil," so translated by Fermin in 

 1769 (Bescr. Surinam, ii. p. 192) from the Dutch Sonne-vogel, to be the present 

 bird, whereas it is obviously the Euryjnjrja (Sun-Bittern). 



\ 



