I S6 GALLIFORMES : MESITIDAE chap. 



The remaining genera are Nothocercus with five, Taoniscus with 

 one, and Tiriamotis with two species. 



Order IX. GALLIFORMES. 



The Galliformes, or Gallinaceous Birds, constitute a large 

 and fairly homogeneous Order, situated between the Tinami- 

 fornies and the Gruiformes, if we assume the former to be classi- 

 fied in accordance with the views of Dr. Gadow, and not to be 

 placed nearer to the Eatitae ; the Gruiformes again linking 

 themselves to the Laro-Limicoline section of the Charadriiformes, 

 and so forth. OjnstJwcumus, however, though decidedly Galline, 

 shows considerable resemblance to the Cuckoo-tribe."^ The present 

 Order may be divided into the Sub-Orders Mesitae, with the 

 Family Mesitidae ; TURNICES, with the Turnicidae or Button- 

 Quails, and the Pedionomidae ; Galli, with the Mega2)odiidae or 

 Mound-builders, the Cracidae or Curassows, and the Fhasianidae 

 or Game-birds, Fowls, and the like : and finally Opisthocomi, with 

 the Family OpisfJioconiidae, containing but one species, the excep- 

 tionally curious Hoatzin. Among the Gidli, the Megcvpodiidae 

 and Cracidae together compose Professor Huxley's group of Peris- 

 teropodes or Pigeon-footed forms, where all the toes are in one plane; 

 the Fhasianidae standing alone in his Alectoropodes, or Fowl- 

 footed division, where the liallux is elevated above its fellows. 



Excluding Medtes, of which comparatively little is known, all 

 the members of the Order agree in having a more or less globular 

 crop, and a somewhat scanty supply of down in the adults, with 

 a more uniform coating in the young, which becomes thinner in 

 OpistJwcomus ; they may he distinguished from the Gruiformes, 

 except RhinochefMS, by their impervious nostrils, while the 

 Tinamiformes differ in the compound structure of their bills, the 

 primitive sternum, and the invaria])ly weak rectrices. 



Sub-Order Mesitae. Fam. I. Mesitidae. — This consists of 

 a single genus, Mesites, from Madagascar, originally referred by 

 Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to the neighbourhood of the Pigeons, 

 and by sul;)sequent writers to that of the Passerine, Ardeine, or 

 Ralline birds.'-* W. A. Forbes ^ classed it next to Eurypijga- and 



^ H. Gadow, Bronn's Thier-Rcich, Aves, STjst. Theil, 1893, i>. 176. 



2 A, Milne-Edwards, A7in. Set. Nat. (6) Zool. vii. 1878, Art. 6. 



3 P.Z.S. 1882, pp. 267-271. 



