BLACK-HEADED TODY. 



Tod of melanovepkalus, SPIX. 

 PLATE XVIII. 



Alx/ve cinereous, tinged with olive ; fore part of the head 

 black ; under plumage yellow ; wings black ; the feathers 

 with yellowish margins; bill distinctly notched ; the tip 

 abruptly hooked. 



Todus melanocephalus, Spix, ii. PI. 9, fig. 2. 



THE admirable precision with which the celebrated 

 M. Desmarest (the best ornithologist that France 

 has produced since the days of Brisson) has charac- 

 terized his Todus cinereuS) enables us not only to 

 determine this as a different species, but, what is of 

 still more importance, to point to that bird as sup- 

 plying an indisputable and a very beautiful link be- 

 tween this and Todus viridis, thus placing, beyond 

 all doubt, this latter bird in the same series of spe- 

 cies which includes the notched-bill todies : those, 

 in fact, which Temminck and others would remove 

 to a totally different part of the system. M. Desma- 

 rest expressly states as a specific character of his 

 Todier Tic-Tic, figured on the sixty-eighth plate 

 of his beautiful volume on the Tanagers, Todies, 



