COCCYZUS. 523 



Geococcyx almost exclusively, and Morococcyx entirely, are peculiarly Central- 

 American and Mexican genera, a larger numerical proportion as compared with the 

 southern continent than usual in other families of birds. 



The position of the Cuculidge is one of marked isolation, and its position in the 

 Systema Avium has been much discussed. Huxley placed it in his Coccygomorphae, 

 associating it with the Bucconidse, Capitonidae, Ehamphastidse, &c., and this is the 

 place we here assign to it. 



Subfam. CUCULINM 

 This subfamily contains genera the species of which are arboreal in habits, with long 

 pointed wings and somewhat powerful flight. The tarsi are short, the tail moderately 

 long and rounded and consisting of ten rectrices. Seventeen genera are included in it, 

 of which Coccyzus alone is American. 



COCCYZUS. 



Coccyzus, Vieillot, Anal. p. 38 (1816) ; Shelley, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xix. p. 302. 



Of this genus there are seven recognized species, one of them (C. minor) being sub- 

 divided into three subspecies, two of them belonging to certain West-Indian Islands 

 and of rather doubtful value. The species found in Central America are C. americanus, 

 the type of the genus, C. erythrophthalmus, and C. minor; the two former being 

 amongst the recognized summer visitants to North America, and the latter a bird 

 found round the shores of the Caribbean Sea and many of the West-Indian Islands. 



The other members of the genus are all of South-American domicile, with the 

 exception of C. ferrugineus, which seems restricted to Cocos Island, an isolated islet in 

 the Pacific outside the Bay of Panama. 



Coccyzus belongs to the Cuculinse, and in general shape is not unlike Cuculus canoriis, 

 being an arboreal genus with short tarsi and rather long pointed wings, the third 

 and fourth quills of which are the longest and form the point of the wing ; the tail is 

 long and much graduated, the outermost feathers being rather more than half the 

 length of the central ones, and in several species all but the middle pair are conspi- 

 cuously tipped with white ; both maxilla and mandible of the bill are curved and drawn 

 gradually to a point, with an even tomia without notch ; the nostrils are open oval 

 apertures at the base of the nasal fossa, with the upper margin membranous ; the eye- 

 lashes are not simple bristles, as in most of the American Cuculidse, the shafts having 

 distinct barbs. 



1. Coccyzus minor. 



Cuculus minor, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 411 '. 



Coccyzus minor, Gray, Gen. Birds, ii. p. 457"; Scl. & Salv. P. Z. S. 1870, p. 837'; Baird, Brew., 

 & Ridgw. N. Am. Birds, ii. p. 483*; Gundl. Orn. Cub. p. 131 '; Boucard, P. Z. S. 1878, 



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