2 PICARIZE 
expectation, and as soon as a fly, butterfly or moth passes by capture it and return to the post 
they have just left ». 
Although little is yet known about the nesting of the Jacamars, it is certain that they lay 
their eggs in holes bored in the earth, like kingfishers, or in hollow trees. The eggs are white, 
and spheroidal in shape. There are no specimens of them in the British Museum, but in the 
great collection of Nehrkorn, now in the Berlin Museum, are examples of the eggs of Galbula 
ruficanda and G. melanogenia (1). 
History of the Literature. Linneus was acquainted with only two species of Jacamars 
(Urogalba paradisea and Galbula viridis) and placed both of them in the genus 4/cedo. But 
Brisson, in 1760, took a more accurate view of their distinctive characters, and founded the 
genus Galbula for these two birds. This name was subsequently adopted by Latham, who 
added two more species to the List. 
In 1806 the French Naturalist Le Vaillant included the Jacamars in his « Histoire Natu- 
relle des Oiseaux de Paradis » recognizing in this work and its supplement altogether seven 
species. Other species were subsequently discovered, and in 1851 Cabanis gave an excellent 
summary of the then existing knowledge of these birds in an article published in Ersch and 
Gruber’s « Encyclopedie », Cabanis recognized 16 species of Jacamars. 
In 1851 I commenced a study of the birds of this group and published a synopsis of the 
species known to me in Jardine’s « Contributions to Ornithology », In 1855 I read a paper on 
the same subject before the Zoological Society of London and raised the number of the 
known species to 20. George Gray’s « Handlist », issued in 1857, contained the names of 
22 species of Galbulidz, divided into three genera. 
The subject continued to attract my attention, and in 1882 I prepared a complete mono- 
graph of the Jacamars, with coloured figures (2) of all the species (drawn by Keulemans), uniting 
the Jacamars in one volume with the allied family of Puff-birds. Nineteen species of Galbulide 
were figured in this work. The nomenclature and arrangement used in it were closely followed 
in the nineteenth volume of the « Catalogue of Birds » of the British Museum, to which in 1891 
I contributed an article on the members of this Family. 
In the present memoir I have not found it necessary to deviate much from the last- 
named work, very slight additions having been made to our knowledge of the Jacamars of 
late years. But I have again gone through the specimens of this family in the National Collec- 
tion (which are now 271 in number, belonging to 21 species) and have examined the fine series 
in the Zoological Museum, Tring, which comprizes 264 specimens referable to 18 species, and 
in so doing have obtained a more accurate knowledge of the distribution of some of the species. 
I offer my best thanks to Mr. Walter Rothschild for the facilities he has given me as regards 
the latter collection. 
Systematic Arrangement. The Ga/bulid@ are naturally divisible into two subfamilies : 
the Galbuline and the Facameropine. The former of these contains five genera and the latter 
only one, as shown in the subjoined table, in which the chief characters are pointed out. 
(1) Cf. Nehrkorn, « Katalog d. Eier-Sammlung », p. 170. 
(2) «A Monograph of the Jacamars and Puffbirds ». — By P. L. Sclater. — London. Porter, 1882, 1 Vol. 4te. 
