LOD 971 
and anon, the bird sallies out upon a short feeble flight, snaps at 
something in the air and returns to his twig to swallow it.” He 
goes on to describe the engaging habits of one that he for a 
short time kept in captivity, which, when turned into a room, 
immediately began catching all the insects it could, at the rate 
of about one a minute. The birds of this Family also shew their 
affinity to the Kingfishers, Motmots and Bee-eaters by burrowing 
holes in the ground? in which to make their nest, and therein 
Be 
Topus viripis. (After Gosse.) 
laying eggs with a white translucent shell. The sexes differ little 
in plumage. All the four species of Todus, as now restricted, 
present a general similarity of appearance, and, it may be presumed, 
possess very similar habits.2, Apart from their structural peculiar- 
1 This habit and their green colour has given them the French name of 
Perroquet or Todier de terre, by which they have been distinguished from other 
species wrongly assigned to the genus by some systematists ; and, if we may 
believe certain French travellers, they must in former days have inhabited some 
of the Lesser Antilles ; but that is hardly probable. 
* Dr. Sharpe has treated of the genus (bis, 1874, pp. 344-355 and Cat. B. 
Br, Mus. xvii. pp. 333-337); but he was misled by an exceptionally bright- 
coloured specimen to add a fifth and bad species to those that exist—and even 
these, by some ornithologists, might be regarded as geographical races. The 
Cuban form is 7. multicolor ; that of Hispaniola is 7. swbulatus or dominicensis ; 
and that of Porto Rico, originally named in error 7’. mexicanus, has since been 
called hypochondriacus. 
