CHAPTER VI 
NEORNITHES CARINATAE CONTINUED 
BRIGADE II——LEGION II (CORACIOMORPHAE). ORDERS : CUCULI- 
FORMES——CORACIIFORMES 
Order XII. CUCULIFORMES. 
THe Order Cuculiformes commences the last great division of 
Carinate Birds. It contains the Sub-Orders CucuL! and Psirract; 
the former consisting of the Familes Cuculidae, or Cuckoos, and 
Musophagidae, or Plantain-eaters ; the latter of the Psittacidae, or 
Parrots, Parrakeets, Macaws, and Cockatoos, and the 77richoglossidae, 
or Lory group. Zygodactylous feet (p. 10) are characteristic of 
the Order, while further structural details are to be found below. 
Dr. Gadow confirms the close connexion of the two Sub-Orders.' 
Fam. I. Cuculidae.—Here we may accept, in default of full 
anatomical investigation, the Sub-familes of Captain Shelley,” 
namely, (1) Cuculinae, (2) Centropodinae, (8) Pheenicophainae, 
(4) Neomorphinae, (5) Diplopterinae, and (6) Crotophaginae. 
The bill is generally long and curved, being strongly arched 
in Hyetornis, Piaya, Taccocua, and Zanclostomus ; it is straight 
in Saurothera and Rhinortha, abnormally large in Rhampho- 
mantis and Scythrops, and has the maxilla compressed into a 
thin elevated plate in Crotophaga. The scutellated metatarsi 
are commonly stout, and are especially long in the cursorial 
genera Coua and Geococcyx ; in Centropus the hallux terminates 
in an elongated spur-like claw. The wings are long and straight 
in the Cuculinae, Diplopterinae, and Crotophaginae, short and 
curved elsewhere; the primaries numbering ten, and the second- 
aries usually nine or ten, but thirteen in -Scythrops; in the 
Neomorphinae the quills are about equal in extent. The rounded 
1 Bronn’s Thier-Reich, Aves, Syst. Theil, 1893, pp. 212-223. 
* Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xix. 1891, pp. 209-210 
