CEOTOPHAGA. 547 



architect's peculiarities was shown. A hole had been left in the centre of the nest 

 and only recently filled with leaves, whose fresh green colour testified that they had 

 ;been cut and placed there later than the others forming the carpeting of the bottom of 

 this common incubator. The eggs were all fresh, the six occupying the nest having 

 the rough white calcareous surface perfectly clean and without the slightest variation 

 in colour : not so the eggs found about the outside of the nest. Those found in 

 contact with the leaves had taken on a dirty yellowish tinge. Those held suspended 

 among the leaves and thorns showed various spots and lines of the lustrous blue 

 colour forming the base for the chalky external coat." In form the eggs vary in shape 

 from an oval to an elliptical oval, and differ greatly in size. 



Fam. CAPITONID^. 



The family Capitonidse contains, so far as we know at present, about 118 species, which 

 are divided into nineteen genera. Of these all but seventeen species of two genera 

 belong to the Old World, and are distributed over the tropical portions of Africa and 

 Asia as far as China, the Philippine Islands, and in the south-east to Borneo and Java. 

 The family is unrepresented in Celebes and the whole of the New Guinea region, 

 Australia, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Nor is it found in any portion of 

 the Palaearctic region, nor in America north of Costa Rica. 



The Neotropical members of the family, seventeen in all, belong to the genera 

 Capita (15) and Tetragonops (2). Capita is distributed over the northern portion of 

 the continent of South America from the valley of the Amazons to the north coast and 

 along the Isthmus as far as Costa Rica, but no further. Eastern Peru and Ecuador 

 seem to be the metropolis of the family, as nine species of Capita and one Tetragonops 

 occur on the eastern slopes of the Andes and the upper waters of the Amazons. 



In Central America we find two species of Capita and one Tetragonaps, but none 

 occur beyond the mountains of Costa Rica. 



. As to 'the position of the Capitonidee in the " Systema Avium," it is now generally 

 agreed that the Rhamphastidse is the nearest allied family, the Indicatoridae not far 

 removed. Garrod and Forbes always placed these families close to the Picidse and 

 away from the Cuculid^, considering that the great similarity of the body anatomy 

 overruled the differences plainly observable in the structure of the head. 



The two chief recent authorities on the Capitonid^ are the Messrs. Marshall, who 

 completed an illustrated Monograph of it in 1871, and Capt. Shelley, who wrote the 

 catalogue of these birds in the British Museum (1891). 



The arrangement of the genera Capita and Tetraganops differs in these two works : in 

 the former Tetragonops is placed with the other dentate forms with the African Pogono- 

 rhvnchus in the Pogonorhynchinse, whilst Capita finds a place with the smooth-billed 



69* 



