PROMEROPS—PSITTACOMORPHA: 743 
species, all—with perhaps one exception, the P. brevirostris of Gould 
(Proc. Zool. Soc. 1855, p. 88, pl. xciii.), if indeed that be distinct, 
as seems very doubtful, from his P. ariel—belonging to the southern 
hemisphere. They are remarkable also for the breadth of their 
bill at the base. 
PROMEROPS, a name, long since Anglicized, invented by 
Réaumur, says Brisson (Ornithol. ii. p. 460, pl. xii. fig. 2), who used 
it ina generic sense for a small South-African bird with plain 
plumage and a remarkably long tail. Without having seen a 
specimen Linneeus referred it to the genus Upupa (Hoopor), but 
also described the same species, from a drawing sent to him by 
Burmann, as a Merops (BEE-EATER). Promerops, however, has 
nothing to do with either, though perhaps its true affinity is not 
yet correctly determined. Most modern systematists think it allied 
to the Sun-BIRDS! (cf. Layard, B. S. Afr. pp. 74, 75, and Shelley, 
Monogr. Nectariniidx, p. 377, pl. 121), though it has none of the 
brilliant hues that distinguish most of that group, its yellow vent 
being all that enlivens the soberly-mottled white of its lower parts, 
while above it is of a uniform greyish-brown. A considerable 
number of birds, having apparently no affinity at all to it, have 
been referred to the genus Promerops, which probably should be 
regarded as the type of a Family. Natal furnishes a second species, 
P. gurneyi, described and figured by Verreaux (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1871, 
p. 135, pl. viii.) 
PROUD TAILOR, a local name for the GOLDFINCH. 
PSEUDOSCINES, Mr. Sclater’s name (Jdis, 1880, p. 345) for 
the abnormal ACRoMYODI of Garrod ; but, being of hybrid derivation, 
Dr. Gadow (Thier-reich, Vogel, System. Th. pp. 173, 177) substituted 
SUBOSCINES in its stead, correlative with his SUBCLAMATORES. 
PSILOPAEDES, a name proposed in 1872 by Sundevall 
(Tentamen, p. 1) for his first division (agmen) of the Class Aves, being 
the Birds whose young are naked before their feathers grow: in 
1873 changed (tom. cit. p. 158) to Gymnopexdes, to prevent confusion 
with PTILOPADES. 
PSITTACI, given in 1826-8 as the name of a Family or group 
consisting of the PARROTS, by Ritgen (N. Act. Acad. L.-C. Nat. Cur. 
xiv. part i. pp. 231, 243), and afterwards adopted as that of an 
Order by Bonaparte and other authors, equivalent therefore to the 
PSITTACOMORPH 4H of Prof. Huxley (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, 
pp. 465, 466), by whom it was regarded as the sixth group of his 
DESMOGNATH. 
1 In the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Musewm (vol. ix.) Promerops is 
placed among the Meliphagine ; but apparently not with the approval of the 
author (tom. cit. p. 209). 
