SOME NEOTROPICAL BIRDS. 223 
stru€tural peculiarities. Its skin, owing to loose cellular 
tissue beneath filled with air, is what is known as emphy- 
sematous or bloated, producing when touched the sensa- 
tion of handling a bladder; its ribs lack the uncinate 
processes (a unique structure in birds) and a slender 
horn-like organ of about three inches in length springs 
from the middle of the head, a charaéter upon which 
both its specific and popular names are based. The 
Horned Screamer and two other allied forms comprise 
the family Palamedeide. 
The Zurypygide or Sun Bitterns are a small family of 
only two species, the common Sunbird Eurypyga helias 
and the Central American form £. major. Although called 
Bitterns they differ much in appearance from those birds, 
and their affinities are with the Cranes. The eggs of the 
common Sunbird are said to be very like those of the 
curious Kagu of New Caledonia, but smaller in size. 
The Warracaba, Psophia crepitans, and the large 
Maam, 7zuamus subcristatus, may be taken as the types 
of the families Psophitde and Tinamidez, the former of 
which contains five species and the latter more than sixty. 
The Warracaba is the only member of its family as 
yet recorded from British Guiana, but on the Upper 
Essequebo anc. Potaro Rivers I have met with a form 
differing from it not only in size and in the colour of its 
tarsi (legs) but also in habits. Unlike the common 
Psophia crepitans this bird never goes in large flocks, 
but is found n small companies of four or five, or in 
pairs. 
The Maams (77zxamid@) are a most interesting group 
forming a sor: of connecting link between the Carinate 
and Struthious birds, (ostrich family), agreeing with the 
