THE ROYAL NATURAL HISTORY. 



BIRDS 



CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE PICARIAN BIRDS, continued. 



THE CUCKOOS. 

 Family CUCULID^. 



THE toucans form the last family of the subordinal group, known as climbing 

 picarians, or Scansores. The cuckoos bring us to the first representatives of a 

 second group, termed cuckoo-like picarians, or Coccyges. In this assemblage the 

 palate of the skull is of the bridged, or desmognathous type ; while the arrange- 

 ment of the tendons of the muscles of the foot is different from that in the first 

 group. As a family, the cuckoos are specially distinguished by having a 

 zygodactyle foot, and a naked oil-gland; the after-shafts to the body-feathers 

 are wanting, and the arrangement of the feathers shows the tract on the back 

 forked between the shoulders. They are birds of universal distribution, very 

 VOL. iv. i 



