PUDDING-POKE -PUFF-BIRD 749 



or demon), a name of the Nightjar, and also of the disorder in 

 the udders of cattle that it has been said to cause. 



PUDDING-POKE, i.e. Pudding-bag, properly the nest of the 

 Long-tailed Titmouse ; but in common use transferred to the bird 

 itself. 



PUFF-BIRD, the name first given, according to Swainson {Zool. 

 Illustr. ser. 1, ii. text to pi. 99), by English residents in Brazil 

 to a group known to ornithologists as forming the restricted Famil}' 

 Bucconidx, but for a long time confounded, under the general name 

 of Barbets, with the Capitonidx of modern systematists, who regard 

 the two Families as differing very considerably from one another. 

 Some authors have used the generic name Capito in a sense pre- 

 cisely opposite to that which is now commonly accorded to it, and the 

 natural result has been to produce one of the most complex of the 

 many nomenclatural puzzles that beset Ornithology. Fortunately 

 there is no need here to enter upon this matter, for each group 

 has formed the subject of an elaborate work — the Cajntonidse being- 

 treated as before stated (p. 27) by the Messrs. Marshall, and the 

 Bucconidx by Mr. Sclater ^ — in each of which volumes the origin 

 of the confusion has been explained, and to either of them the 

 more curious reader may be confidently referred. The Bucconidse 

 are zygodactylous Birds belonging to the large heterogeneous 

 assemblage in the present work called PiCARi^E, and are commonly 

 considered nowadays to be most nearly allied to the Galhulidse 

 (Jacamar). Like them they are confined to the Neotropical 

 Region, in the middle parts of which, and especially in its 

 Sub-Andean Subregion, the Puff-birds are, as regards species, 

 abundant ; while only two seem to reach Guatemala and but one 

 Paraguay. As with most South-American Birds, the habits and 

 natural history of the Buccanidse have been but little studied, and 

 of only one species, which happens to belong to a rather abnormal 

 genus, has the nidification been described. This is the Chelidoptem 

 tenehrosa, which is said to breed in holes in banks, and to lay white 

 eggs much like those of the Kingfisher and consequently those 

 of the Jacamars. From his own observation Swainson writes 

 {loc. cit.) that Puff-birds are very grotesque in appearance. They 

 will sit nearly motionless for hours on the dead bough of a 

 tree, and while so sitting " the disproportionate size of the 

 head is rendered more conspicuous by the bird raising its feathers 

 so as to appear not unlike a puff ball. . . . When frightened their 

 form is suddenly changed by the feathers lying quite flat." They 

 are very confiding birds and will often station themselves a few 

 yards only from a window. The Bucconidse almost without ex- 



^ A Monograph of the Jacamars and Puff-birds, or Families Galbulidfc and 

 Bueconida;. London : 1879-82, 4to. 



