548 PICARIAN BIRDS. 



This is delivered in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is given as a single 

 whole note, but it may be repeated at intervals of a second for minutes at 

 a time. The dart into the air for an insect interrupts this musical reverie only 

 momentarily, and, on returning to their perch, the plaintive calling is continued ; 

 at other times their notes are uttered more rapidly, and may rise into a high, 

 prolonged trilling. This may be ground out as revolutions of sound, when the 

 effect is most peculiar." Mr. Richmond says that on the river Escondido in 

 Nicaragua he met with the black-cheeked jacamar (G. melanogenia) on three or 

 four occasions. "It has a piercing cry resembling kee-u, with the first syllable 

 very shrill, and strongly accentuated. The bird jerks its tail after the manner 

 of a kingfisher." 



Broad-Billed A single species (Jacamerops gmandis) is the sole representative, 



Jacamar. no t only of this genus, but likewise of the second subfamily of the 

 jacamars. This bird is found from British Guiana to Amazonia, and thence to 

 Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. It is a bird of large size, fully 10 J inches in 

 length, of the usual metallic-green colour above, chestnut below, with a large spot 

 of white on the throat. It has a broader bill than any of the other members of 

 the family, and is further easily recognisable by its large size. 



THE PUFF-BIRDS. 

 Family BUCCONID^. 



Much resembling the Passerines in external appearance, and like them having 

 twelve tail-feathers, as well as a shrike-like beak, the puff-birds are nevertheless 

 true Picarians, having a bridged palate and zygodactyle feet ; while the tendons 

 which serve the toes are of the same type as in woodpeckers and honey -guides. 

 There is no aftershaft to any of the contour-feathers ; the oil-gland is naked ; and 

 the wing-coverts rather resemble those of the Passerines in their arrangement than 

 the rest of the Picarians. Like the other members of the present order, puff-birds 

 are believed to nest in holes, and to lay white eggs, but really very little is known 

 about them. Confined to South America, the puff-birds have no representatives in 

 the Old World, or even in North America. Seven genera are admitted by Dr. 

 Sclater, the names of which it will be unnecessary to mention, and forty- three 

 species ; the range of the family being from Honduras in Central America south- 

 ward over the whole of South America, as far as Bolivia and Southern Brazil. 

 Puff-birds are said to be generally woodland birds, being found singly or in pairs, 

 and are considered to be of a rather sluggish and stupid nature. Dr. Sclater says 

 that they are a " purely arboreal and forest-frequenting group of birds, seeming to 

 pass the greater part of their lives sitting upon the topmost or outermost branches 

 of trees, generally selecting twigs that are dry and withered for their perch, and 

 looking out for insects, which are captured flying, and which constitute their only 

 food. The swallow- winged puff-birds (Chelidoptera) nest in holes in banks like 

 kingfishers, and lay white eggs." Mr. Richmond, when in Eastern Nicaragua, met 

 with Dyson's puff-bird (Bucco dysoni) in the forest on the Escondido River, where it 

 was catching insects, and behaving very much like a tyrant-flycatcher. He says that 



