118 PTERYLOGRAPHY. 



In the other tracts I have noticed only their narrow form, especially that of the outer branch of 

 the inferior tract, which is obtuse at the end, and sends a hook to the hypopteran). The main 

 bands remain separate as far as the anus. The lumbar tract is as long as in the true Gallinacese, 

 but not so strong. In the wing I counted twenty-Jive remarkably short remiges ; the first is the 

 longest, but is nearly equalled by the second, third and fourth ; the following rapidly become 

 shorter, but the eleventh is not smaller than the others ; the hinder secondaries, again, are rather 

 long. I could not precisely ascertain the number of tail-feathers according to Temminck 

 (' Hist. Nat. des Gallinaces,' iii, 609) the genus has ten in 11. pugnax I found only six, but 

 some were wanting. I have likewise examined //. tachydromus. The oil-gland is present, and 

 circlet of feathers on its mamilla. 



3. Megapodius. Of this rare and aberrant form I have only been able to examine a stuffed 

 specimen of M. rubripes in Temininck's collection, and by this means ascertained that it 

 possesses the general characters of the Gallinacese. The remiges were short and curved on to the 

 body, but unfortunately they were being moulted ; the first, however, were decidedly graduated. 

 In the tail I found only eight feathers, probably for the same reason. The contour-feathers had a 

 distinct after-shaft, and the oil-gland bore a circlet of feathers at the apex. 



CHAPTER VI. 



CURSORIAL BIRDS (Currentes Aucrr.). 

 Platysterna NrrzscH. 1 



THE four known members of this remarkable and abnormal family are distinguished 

 pterylographically from all other birds especially by the circumstance that certain conditions 

 of plumage occur in them as a general rule, which are met with elsewhere only as occasional 

 exceptions. The first and most important is undoubtedly the complete absence of interruptions 

 in the plumage, inasmuch as the whole body, Avith ths exception of the constantly naked parts of 

 the head and neck, the naked band on the breast along the crest of the sternum, the tarsi, and in 

 the African Ostrich the legs and the sides of the trunk, is covered, after the fashion of Mam- 

 mals, with a homogeneous feathery coat, which consists entirely of contour-feathers. In the 

 true Cassowaries these contour-feathers have an after-shaft equal to the main shaft; in the 

 Ostriches the alter-shaft is entirely wanting ; but in all the peculiar hooked structures on 

 the barbules are absent, and the contour-feathers consequently never present coherent surfaces, 

 but merely regularly branched tufts. Hence the feathers of the Cursorial Birds truly occupy a 

 middle place between down- and contour-feathers, being strongly and powerfully formed like the 

 latter, but, like the former, not united into continuous surfaces. The second marked character is 



1 Although, in his ' Memoir on the Carotid Artery of Birds,' Jfitzscli placed this group at the end 

 of his system, lie afterwards became convinced that it must be intercalated here, between the 

 Gallinaceous and Wading Birds. (BURM.) 



