594 MOTMOT 
allocation Garrod (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, pp. 100-102) partly de- 
murred, though admitting the Kingfisher affinity, while upholding 
the former, and even declaring that Motmots and Todies form but 
a single Family. As the conclusions of both these investigators are 
based on the sure ground of anatomical structure, they are of in- 
comparably greater value than most of those arrived at by prior 
systematists who judged from external characters alone. 
In outward appearance the Motmots have an undoubted 
resemblance to the Meropidx, but, though beautiful birds, various 
shades of blue and green predominating in their plumage, they do 
not exhibit such decided and brilliant colours; and while the Bee- 
eaters are only found in the Old World, the Motmots are a purely 
Neotropical form, extending from southern Mexico to Paraguay, 
and the majority of species inhabit Central America. They are 
said to be solitary birds, or at most living in pairs, among the gloomy 
forests, where they sit on the underwood nearly motionless, or only 
jerking their long tail as the cry “ houtou” (or something like it) is 
uttered. Their ordinary food is small reptiles, insects, and fruits. 
The nest of one species, as observed by Mr. Robert Owen, is at the 
end of a hole bored in the bank of a watercourse, and the eggs are 
pure white and glossy (dis, 1861, p. 65). Little else has been 
recorded of their ways. 
The Momotide form but a small group, containing, according 
to the enumeration of them in 1873 by Messrs. Sclater and Salvin 
(Nomenclator, pp. 102, 103), but 17 species,! distributed into 6 
genera, of which last, however, Dr. Murie (/.c.) would only recognize 
four—Momotus, Baryphthengus, Hylomanes,and Eumomota—the second 
including Urospatha, and the last Prionorhynchus, while Dr. Sharpe 
in 1892 (Cat. B. Br. Mus. xvii. pp. 313-332) made an additional 
genus, raising the number of genera to 7 and of species to 18. 
The distinctions between Dr. Murie’s, and still more Dr. Sharpe’s 
groups would require more space to indicate than can here be 
allowed; but it may be stated that, while all have a general 
resemblance in the serrated edges of the bill and many other 
characters, Momotus has the normal number of 12 rectrices, while 
the rest have only 10,? which in Hylomanes have the ordinary con- 
figuration, but in adult examples of all the others the shaft of the 
median pair is devoid of barbs for the space of about an inch a 
little above the extremity, so as to produce a spatulate appearance, 
such as is afforded by certain HUMMING-BIRDS known as “ Racquet- 
1 The same number was recognized by the first-named of these gentlemen in 
his review of the Family (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857, pp. 248-260), where they are all 
diagnosed, a species, subsequently described by Dr. Cabanis (Mus. Hein. ii. p. 
115), not being adinitted. 
2 Dr. Sharpe (Z¢.) makes a different statement, but I believe Dr. Murie, 
whose reckoning is here followed, to be right. 
