930 



PROF. A. H. GARROD ON INDICATOR MAJOR. [Nov. 19, 



3. Notes on the A-iiatomy of Indicator major. By A. H. 

 Garrod, M.A., F.R.S., Prosector to the Society. 



[Eeceived October 25, 1878.] 



Through the kindness of Mr. R. B. Sharpe I have had the oppor- 

 tunity of examining a spirit-preserved specimen of Indicator major, 

 from Fantee, which enables me to lay before the Society some fresh 

 facts in its anatomy confirmatory of its non-C'uculine affinities. 



In his contributions to Orr's edition of Cuvier's 'Animal Kingdom' 

 ( 1 840), the late Mr. E. Blyth referred the Honey-guides to the Wood- 

 peckers as their uearest allies ' ; and this idea was expanded by him two 

 years later in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 2 . In ' The 

 Ibis' for 1870 3 , Mr. Sclater brought forward fresh facts in proof of 

 the non-Cuculine affinities of the genus, and proposed to place it next 

 to the Capitonidse, with which, or with the Coliidse, Mr. Bl an ford 

 also in the same year showed it had its nearest relationships 4 . 



The following observations tend to prove the correctness of the con- 

 clusions arrived at by the two last-mentioned ornithologists, and 

 the error of imagining that Indicator is related to the Cuculidae. 



1 Loc. tit. p. 215. - Vol. xi. p. 167, 1842. n p. 176. 



* Observations on the Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia, 1870, p. 308. 



