41 



The Puff -birds {Bticcojiidiz) form a numerous group (about fifty 

 species) of small birds, with stout bills, loose, puffy plumage and 

 striking colors, confined to tropical America (Case H). The 

 Jacamars {Galbulidce), also tropical American, have slender bills 

 and iridescent plumage, usually of some shade of green above. 

 They somewhat resemble Kingfishers in habits and general form 

 (Case H). 



The Toucans {Rhaniphastidce) are among the most striking of 

 birds, being arrayed in rather brilliant and strongly contrasting 

 colors, with a beak, in some of the species, nearly as large as the 

 body (Case H). The bill, though so large, is extremely light, 

 being hollow and the walls very thin. They are sluggish birds, 

 with small weak wings ; they subsist upon fruits and nest in hol- 

 low trees. They are exclusively restricted to the American 

 tropics, and have no near relatives. 



The Barbets {Mcgalaimidce) are mainly confined to fhe tropical 

 forests of the Old World, where about five-sixths of the eighty 

 species are found, the remainder occurring in the corresponding 

 regions of the New World. They much resemble, externally, the 

 Puff-birds, being somewhat similarly colored, and having much 

 the same clumsy form. They are strikingly arrayed in vividly 

 contrasting colors (Cases H and S). 



The Honey-Guides {I/idicatoridcv) form a small Old World 

 family of about a dozen species, confined to the tropics, and 

 mainly to Africa. They are small birds, of rather dull colors 

 (Case S), and derive their name from their authenticated habit 

 of guiding the natives of South Africa to trees containing the 

 nests of bees, to share with their human allies the store of honey 

 the bees have collected. 



So different are the Woodpeckers, at least in gener.11 appearance 

 and habits, from the other Picarian birds, it seems strange to find 

 them so associated, yet most late authorities agree that their 

 general structure warrants this arrangement rather than their 

 recognition as an ordinal group. They form, however, a well- 

 marked suborder, consisting of one family {FicidcB)^ divisible into 

 three subfamilies. The first of these is that of the Piculets 

 {Picumnince) — small Woodpecker-like birds, with soft tails and 

 sombre colors, having about twenty representatives in tropical 



