356 



A VES ORDER EUR YL&MI. 



Fig. 90. THE WHITE- 

 BELLIED JACAMAR 

 (Galbula leucogastra.) 



The Broad -Bills. 

 Order 



Eurylcemi. 



habits, and we learn from Messrs. Salvin and Godnian in their "Biologia" 

 that it is a solitary bird, frequenting deep ravines 

 overhung with trees ; it has a quick, darting flight, 

 utters 110 cry, and feeds on insects. Mr. Richmond 

 says that, on the Escondido River in Nicaragua, he 

 noticed the bird jerking its tail like a kingfisher, 

 and he describes the cry as piercing, and resembling 

 the syllables "kee-u," with the first syllable very 

 shrill and strongly accentuated. 



Before commencing the account of the true perch- 

 ing birds or Passeriformes, there remain two orders 

 which have generally been placed with the latter, 

 but which, in our opinion, should be kept distinct. 

 These are the broad-bills (Eurylcemi) and the lyre- 

 birds (Menurce). 



The broad-bills are only found in the Himalayan 

 region in India, whence they extend through the Bur- 

 mese provinces to the Malayan peninsula and islands to Borneo and the Philip- 

 pines. They have a passerine or segithognathous palate, but 

 the structure of the deep plantar tendons is strikingly different 

 from those of the typical passerine foot, as the flexor longus hal- 

 Incis tendon sends out a strong band or "vinculum" to join the 

 tendon of the flexor profuudus digitorum. The trachea is also 

 peculiar, and the sternum has no forked manubrial process. In the first sub- 

 family of the Eurylunmidce Dr. Sclater places but one genus, Calyptomena, which 

 is distinguished by the frontal plumes covering the nostrils. It contains but 

 three species, which are, however, the finest of the broad-bills. Their princi- 

 pal colour is emerald-green, varied with velvety black, and C. whiteheadi from 

 Kina Balu Mountain in Northern Borneo, is the largest of the family, mea- 

 suring nearly a foot in length. It builds a good-sized nest, according to Mr. 

 John Whitehead, who discovered this splendid species, which it "suspends 

 from the end of a slender bough about fifty feet from the ground. The 

 outside is composed of fresh green moss bound over the bough, and worked 

 into the sides, ending in a long streamer, which assists in assimilating the 

 nest to the long dripping streamers of mess and 

 lichens which hang from every bough in this continual 

 rainy season. The inside of the nest is very solid, 

 lined with dry bamboo-leaves above and below, form- 

 ing a well -sheltered pocket. The eggs are glossy 

 creamy- white." A second species of Calyptomena, G. 

 hosii, a green bird with a blue breast, has been dis- 

 covered in the mountains of Savawak by Mr. Charles 

 Hose, while the small species, 0. viridis, is found every- 

 where in the low country throughout the Malayan 

 peninsula and islands. 



Of the Eurylaiminv, which have bare nostrils, there 

 are six genera, Psarisomus with one species, Serilophus 

 with two, Sarcophartops with two, Eurylcemus with 

 two, Gorydon with one, and Cymborhynchus with two. 

 Psarisomus dalhounce of the Eastern Himalayas and 



the hills of Assam and Burma is a very handsome bird, being green, with a 

 black head and a blue patch on the crown. Another fine species is Hors- 



Fig. 91. HORSFIELD'S 

 BROADBILL 



(Eurylwmusjavanicus). 



