972 TOES 



ities, one of the chief points of interest attaching to the Tocliclgs 

 is their limitation, not only to the Antillean Sub-region, but, as 

 is now believed, to its greater islands. 



TOES, forming that part of the foot on which a Bird rests, 

 naturally exhibit countless modifications — in number, size or in 

 the way in which they are connected by the podoiheca or integu- 

 ment of the foot, for it is obvious that these modifications depend 

 chiefly on the kind of life the bird leads, and whether it uses its 

 Toes to catch prey, to perch, climb, run, scratch, wade or swim. 

 Earlier ornithologists, having no better characters on which to rely, 

 attached to the structure of the Toes a value out of all proportion 

 to their real taxonomic importance, and thus a superabundance 

 of technical terms was created, some quite illogically, even by 

 systematists of the modern school.^ In a great many Birds either 

 the HALLUX (p. 404) or the Fourth Toe is reversible — the latter 

 for instance can not only be turned back at will by the Owls 

 (pp. 675, 676), but is frequently so carried by some of them. 

 To a less extent the Musophagidx (TouRACO) and Leptosoma 

 (Roller, p. 794) have the same facility. In all these birds the 

 feet shew a more or less temporary condition which has become 

 permanent in groups that are called " zygodactylous " and placed 

 together as Scansores. There can scarcely be a doubt that this 

 form of " climbing " foot has been acquired independently by several 

 groups of birds, just as others have independently developed the 

 webs that form a "swimming" foot, and so, regardless of essential 

 differences of structure, have been combined as Natatores. In 

 Colius (Mouse-bird) the hallux can be turned forward and the 

 Fourth Toe backward, so that this peculiar form can put on at 

 will the normal, the zygodactylous or the " pamprodactylous " 

 type — the last being permanent in certain Swifts, and in a less 

 degree some Nightjars. 



Originally the four Toes may be presumed to be placed on the 

 same level, and this condition prevails in most if not all of the 

 Birds in which the hallux is large and functional, such as Pah- 

 medea, Steganopodes, Herodii, Scopus, Megapodiidx, Cracidm, Porphyrio, 

 Accipitres, Coluvibx, Striges, Pkarim and Passeres. When, however, 

 the hallux is reduced in size and importance it is often moved 

 higher up, so that it does not seem to rise from the same level as 

 the fore-toes, as is the case in Tubinares, Colymhidx, most Anseres, 



^ Thus Desmodactyli (p. 134) and Eleutheeodactyli (p. 194) are names 

 given to groups, not because one has the Toes externally joined and the other Toes 

 free to the base, but because one has a vincuhim to the deep plantar tendons and 

 the other has not {cf. p. 615, Type I.). Anisodactyli (p. 19), HeUrodadyles 

 (Blainville, Bull. Soc. Philomat. 1816, p. 110), Pampkodactyl.e (p. 684), Syndao- 

 TYLi (p. 937) and Zygodactyli, with their derivatives, are other cases in point. 



