330 DENDEOCHELIDON COEONATTJS. 



tiny horizontal branch. The nest is nowhere more than i inch in thickness, is at most ^ inch deep in the deepest 

 part, and can be exactly covered by half-a-crown/' Mr. Thompson writes " that it is entirely filled by the 

 solitary, rather largish, white, oval egg. The bird looks for all the world as if she were sitting on the branch, 

 and no amount of looking from underneath would show you that there was a nest under her." The flakes of 

 bark of which the nest is composed are sometimes mixed with a few feathers, which, cemented with the 

 inspissated saliva of the bird, serve to bind the whole together. Mr. Hume gives the measurements of an egg 

 in his possession as 085 by 0'55 inch. 



FICA'RIjE. 



Fam. CAPRIMULGID^E. 



Bill with the culmen short and curved and the gape very wide, receding below the eyes, 

 and furnished, in some, with stout bristles. Wings moderate, or long and pointed. Tail of ten 

 feathers. Legs and feet very small. 



Sternum short, deeply keeled, the posterior edge emarginated. 



Plumage soft and mottled. Eyes very large. Of nocturnal habit. 



Subfam. STEATORNIN^E. 



Bill large, inflated, the margin ctuved and receding beyond the posterior corner of the eye ; 

 gape enormously wide ; base of upper mandible clothed with bristly feathers. Wings, when 

 closed, scarcely reaching beyond the middle of the tail. Feet very small, the middle claw not 

 pectinated. 



Genus BATEACHOSTOMUS. 



Of small size. 



Bill short and enormously wide, both mandibles inflated at the sides and suddenly compressed 

 at the tips ; culmen much curved and the tip of the upper mandible hooked. Nostrils horizontal, 

 linear, placed in a membrane, which is completely covered by the frontal plumes ; gape smooth ; 

 a series of erect branching plumes in front of the eyes. Wings short, rounded ; the 1st quill 

 about two thirds of the length of the 4th and 5th, which are subequal and longest. Tail long, 

 even at the tip much graduated, the lateral feathers very short. Legs and feet small ; the tarsus 

 shorter than the middle toe, feathered more or less in front, the bare portion scutellate. Middle 

 toe considerably longer than the lateral toes, both of which are joined to it at the base by a 

 membrane ; hind toe short. 



Sternum small, with a shallow keel, with two deep emarginations in each half of the posterior 



edge. 



A tuft of long hair-tipped feathers springing from above the ears. 





