TODY 



971 



and anon, the bird sallies out upon a shoi't feeble flight, snaps at 

 something in the air and returns to his twig to swallow it." He 

 goes on to describe the engaging habits of one that he for a 

 short time kept in captivity," which, when turned into a room, 

 immediately began catching all the insects it could, at the rate 

 of about one a minute. The birds of this Family also shew their 

 affinity to the Kingfishers, Motmots and Bee-eaters by burrowing 

 holes in the ground ^ in Avhich to make their nest, and therein 



ToDUS viRiDis. (After Gosse.) 



laying eggs with a white translucent shell. The sexes diff"er little 

 in plumage. All the four species of Todus, as now restricted, 

 present a general similarity of appearance, and, it may be presumed, 

 possess very similar habits." Apart from their structural jDeculiar- 



^ This habit and their green colour has given them the French name of 

 Pcrroquet or Todicr dc tcrre, by -which they have been distinguished from other 

 species wrongly assigned to the genus by some systematists ; and, if we may 

 believe certain French travellers, they must in former days have inhabited some 

 of the Lesser Antilles ; but that is hardly probable. 



- Dr. Sharpe has treated of the genus [Ibis, 1874, pp. 344-355 and Cat. B. 

 Br. M'us. xvii. pp. 333-337) ; but he was misled by an exceptionally bright- 

 coloured specimen to add a fifth and bad species to those that exist — and even 

 these, by some ornithologists, might be regarded as geographical races. The 

 Cuban form is T. multicolor ; that of His])aniola is T. suhulat^is or dominicensis ; 

 and that of Porto Rico, originally named in error T. mexicanus, has since been 

 called hy2)Ochondriacus. 



