1872.] DR. J. MURIE ON THE SKELETON OF TODUS. 677 



is most aberrant in some of its limb-dimensions, and so, indeed, are 

 the Stork-billed Kingfishers ; but these very abnormalities serve to 

 smooth vexatious questions of consanguinity, and act as supports to 

 the chain of affinities uniting other characters. 



Todus and its kindred. 



" Les Tochers sont de petits oiseaux d'Ame'rique, assez semblables 

 aux Martins-pecheurs pour la forme generate, et qui en ont aussi les 

 pieds et le bee alonge, mais ou ce bee est aplati horizontalement, 

 obtus a. son extre'mite, le tarse plus e'leve, et la queue moins courte." 



Such was Cuvier's* notion of these birds, a judgment not acqui- 

 esced in by many subsequent writers. Among pure ornithologists, 

 however, Vigors f seems to have followed in the wake of Cuvier, and 

 in his ' Fissirostres ' places the Todidse between the Caprimulgidae 

 and Halcyonidae. Eurylaimus is his connecting link between the 

 Tody and the Goatsuckers, though to Halcyon, according to him, 

 there is more iutimate resemblance. 



Lesson \, it appears, believed in the genus having great approxima- 

 tion to the Kingfishers through Todyrhamphus, yet doubtfully dis- 

 poses of it betwixt Platyrhynchus and Myiagra. The acute and. 

 original-minded Nitzsch§, from his pterylographic studies, makes a 

 group Todidae, wherein Coracias, Merops, Priorities, Todus, and Gal- 

 bula are respectively included as subdivisions. The Motmot and 

 Tody are associated on account of having a spinal tract without a 

 space. Temminck's|| arrangement is as follows: — Rupicola, Pipra, 

 Pardalotus, Todus, Platyrhynchus, Muscipeta, Muscicapa. 



Bonaparte f gives a subfamily to the Todinae, the geuus Todus 

 coming between Psaris and Todirostrum, the family of the Todies 

 having position after the Cotingidse and Eurylaimidae. In Gray's 

 ' Genera of Birds' Todus comes under the Coracidae ; this is followed 

 by the Trogonidge, and then the Alcedinidae In the same writer's 

 recent 'Hand-List of Birds,' 1869, the grouping runs, Coracidae, 

 Eurylaimidae, Todidse, Momotidse, Trogonidse, Bucconidae, Alcedi- 

 nidae, Meropidae, and Galbulidve. Another ornithologist, Mr. Swain- 

 son**, has devoted a volume to the Flycatchers, wherein Todus is 

 assigned a nearly central position — Megalophus and Platyrhynchus 

 corning on the one hand, Lepturus, Muscipeta, &c. on the other. 

 Todus, as Svvainson takes it, is preeminently typical and a standing 

 proof of the correctness of his ornithological circular system. 



As a naturalist whose observations have been made amongst forest 

 and glade, Mr. Wallace-)-)- takes a high place. His conclusions are as 



* Regne Animal. 



t Linn. Soc. Trans. (1822-3) vol. xiv. p. 431. 



J Manuel d'Ornith. vol. i. p. 179. 



§ ' Pterylographie,' and Engl. ed. Rav. Soc. 1868, p. 89. 



|| ' Manuel d'Ornithologie,' 2nd ed. (1820), part i. p. 65. 



■T ' Conspectus Generum Avium,' p. 182. 



** ' Naturalist's Library,' Birds, vol. xiii. 



tt Ann. & Mag. of Nat. Hist., Sept. 1856, p. 200. In this masterly essay 

 Mr. Wallace most logically discountenances Svvainsou's "circular arrangement" 

 as untenable. 



