972 LOES 
ities, one of the chief points of interest attaching to the Todidz 
is their limitation, not only to the Antillean Sub-region, but, as 
is now believed, to its greater islands. 
TOES, forming that part of the foot on which a Bird rests, 
naturally exhibit countless modifications—in number, size or in 
the way in which they are connected by the podotheca or integu- 
ment of the foot, for it is obvious that these modifications depend 
chiefly on the kind of life the bird leads, and whether it uses its 
Toes to catch prey, to perch, climb, run, scratch, wade or swim. 
Earlier ornithologists, having no better characters on which to rely, 
attached to the.structure of the Toes a value out of all proportion 
to their real taxonomic importance, and thus a superabundance 
of technical terms was created, some quite illogically, even by 
systematists of the modern school.! In a great many Birds either 
the HALLUX (p. 404) or the Fourth Toe is reversible—the latter 
for instance can not only be turned back at will by the OwLs 
(pp. 675, 676), but is frequently so carried by some of them. 
To a less extent the Musophagide (Touraco) and  Leptosoma 
(RoLLER, p. 794) have the same faculty. In all these birds the 
feet shew a more or less temporary condition which has become 
permanent in groups that are called “zygodactylous” and placed 
together as SCANSORES. There can scarcely be a doubt that this 
form of “climbing” foot has been acquired independently by several 
groups of birds, just as others have independently developed the 
webs that form a “swimming” foot, and so, regardless of essential 
differences of structure, have been combined as NATATORES. In 
Colius (MOUSE-BIRD) the hallux can be turned forward and the 
Fourth Toe backward, so that this pecuhar form can put on at 
will the normal, the zygodactylous or the ‘ pamprodactylous ” 
type—the last being permanent in certain SwIFts, and in a less 
degree some NIGHTJARS. 
Originally the four Toes may be presumed to be placed on the 
same level, and this condition prevails in most if not all of the 
Birds in which the hallux is large and functional, such as Pala- 
medea, Steganopodes, Herodii, Scopus, Megapodiide, Cracidx, Porphyria, 
Accipitres, Columbx, Striges, Picarizw and Passeres. When, however, 
the hallux is reduced in size and importance it is often moved 
higher up, so that it does not seem to rise from the same level as” 
the fore-toes, as is the case in Tubinares, Colymbidx, most Anseres, 
1 Thus DesMopactyLt (p. 134) and ELEUTHERODACTYLI (p. 194) are names 
given to groups, not because one has the Toes externally joined and the other Toes 
free to the base, but because one has a vinewlum to the deep plantar tendons and 
the other has not (cf. p. 615, Type I.). ANisopacryLi (p. 19), Hétérodactyles 
(Blainville, Budd. Soc. Philomat. 1816, p. 110), PAMPRODACTYL (p. 684), SYNDAC- 
TYLI (p. 937) and Zycopacryut, with their derivatives, are other cases in point. 
