TODIES. 399 



U. S. National Musciim. The shaded parts indicate the central tail-feathers, the 

 bases of wliicli are still in tlie sheaths; they are only half grown, and have not yet 

 reached the end of the next j)air; still they are perfectly racket-shaj)ed, only that the 

 discs are larger than usual, so that it may be presumed that any future denudation ■would 

 take place from the nude stem down towards the end of the feather. This point is of 

 some importance, since we find that the deinidation of the full grown feather upwards 

 never does proceed farther than the tips of the next pair. Fig. 197,1 represents a 

 feather which may helj) to solve the question. In feathers for some reason or other not 

 in prime condition, or j)art of which are destined by a regularly returning process to 

 fall off, we find by holding them up towards the light, fine transparent lines running 

 across the barbs like strings of minute holes. These so-called 'hunger-marks' indi- 

 cate where tlie barbs are going to break. In the figure, drawn from a specimen in tiie 

 National ^[nseuiu in 'SVashijigton, such a line is visible, and the tijts of the outer 

 barlis have already broken off. It would not be particularly surprising if the bird 

 subsequently purposel)- removed the defective barbs, but I see no reason why it may 

 not be assumed, tiiat these already broken barbs may not die entirely off at their in- 

 sertion, being removed by the serrated beak of the bird when preening its chief 

 ornament. This would account for Mr. Bartlett's having seen the broken barbs fall- 

 ing from the bird's bill. If this be the true solution, then there is no room for the 

 theory that the voluntary trimming through several generations has produced the 

 narrowness of the webs before the discs even in the untrimmed feathers. The species 

 figured {Momotus inomota) has no disc-like expansion. It lives in tropical South 

 America, and is the oldest known of the group. 



Garrod originally referred the IMomotidw to the Passcrifornies without tufts to the 

 oil gland and with cajca ; but afterwards finding by actual dissection that cajca were 

 absent, and that some species had minute tufts, he removed them to the Piciformes. 

 As to the Tonin.E of which he seems to have dissected none, he remarks, however, 

 that they almost certainly form a single family with the motniots, adding that he had 

 been able from a skin to determine that they are synpelmous in exactly the same 

 manner as the motmot. Foi'bes has since ascertained that colic ca-ca are ])resent, and 

 that simultaneously the oil-gland is strongly tufted. Osteologically ^loniotidjc and 

 Todida; are nearly allied, though the latter have no vomer, and their niainibrium sterni 

 shows tendency to bifurcation. Here are a few of Dr. ^luric's remarks: •• It would 

 seem that where outward apj)earance has swayed, naturalists judged I'odus as having 

 alliance with the fly-catchers or the motmots; but where anatomical evidence has 

 been relied on, the kingfishers and bee-eaters are the groups with which it carried 

 family likeness. It results from my investigation, and a summing up of the labors of 

 othere, that its nearest living allies undoubtedly are the motmots and kinglishers; but 

 it jiresents such aberrance that it ought not to be ranked amongst either, but in 

 proximity as a separate division — the Todidse — equivalent to the Momotidie." 



The Todidas consist only of a single genus of half a dozen forms, which are con- 

 fined to some of the West Indian Islands. The typical and oldest known species, 

 Todua todus (or T. viridln), figured in the accompanying cut, shows them to be small 

 (the figure is natural size), somewhat kingfisher-like birds, with syndactyle feet, long 

 and flattened beak with minute serrations along the edge, a short tail, and a jilumage 

 which above is bright ]iarrot green, below whitish tinged with faint greenish and 

 yellow, while the throat is of a brilliant j'oppy red. Mr. 1'. II. Gosse descriiies the 

 bill as above horny red, beneath pale crimson. The same author speaks of its habits 



