2 eee 
FAM. MESITID&A 
BY L. BRASIL 
HE Family De consists of a single Genus Mesites Coy) Saint- Se 
ae oe by eae Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire (1838) to ote neighbourood of 
the Pigeons, then placed near the Mound-builders by Gray (1841), Reichenbach 

(1851) , and Bonaparte (1854). Alterwards, at J. Verreaux’s suggestion, it seems, the Genus has 
been classed by Gray (1869), Sundevall (1872), and Hartlaub (1877) in the Passerine birds. 
A. Milne-Edwards (1878), judging from his own dissection of Mesites variegata, the single 
known species, put the bird close to the Rails and Herons, Gadow (1893), considering Mesites 
as a link between the Gruiformes, the Tinamiformces, and the Galliformes, has referred it to this 
last Order. On the other side, Forbes (1882), after Bartlett (1877), has point out the affinities 
of Mesites with Eurypyga and Rhinochetos; Sharpe (1891, 1899), acknowledging the truth of 
this observation, has placed the three birds in the Order Gruiformes or Grues, where I put 
them also. 
Characters. Mesites variegata is a bird of a moderate size, being large about as a 
Water Rail. 
The bill is slender, compressed, moderate in length, shorter than the head, the culmen 
rounded and slightly incurved; the nostrils are long, linear and concave upturned slits, exten- 
ding for more than half the length of the bill, and covered with a well-marked membranous 
valvular operculum, The wings are short and obtuse; the primaries are ten in number, the first 
of which is rather long, the next three are on increasing, the next three are equal; there are 
six secondaries. The tail is long, strong, and rounded; there are sixteen upper tail-coverts, 
fourteen rectrices, which are longer than the upper tail-coverts, and fourteen under 
tail-coverts about one quarter shorter. The legs are rather long, slender, weak; the tibiz are 
