682 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
=?Ocyptiline MitnE-Epwarps, Ois. Foss., ii, 1867-1871. 
= Micropodoider StEINEGER, Stand. Nat. Hist., iv,-1885, 437, in text. 
= Micropodoidea Lucas, Auk, vi, Jan., 1889, 12. 
= Macropterygide (not of Lucas, 1895) Hartert, Das Tierreich, Podarg., Caprim., 
Macropt., 1897, 63. 
Small to rather large swallow-like Macrochires with bill short, flat, 
and broadly triangular; gape deeply cleft and without rictal bristles; 
nostrils opening vertically, near together, and non-operculate; tongue 
not extensile; palate egithognathous; six to seven pairs of ribs and 
with eight to eleven secondaries and two to three feathers composing 
the alula. 
Palate egithognathous; maxillo-palatines unciform; basipterygoid 
processes absent; metasternum convex and entire (Micropodide 
except Tachornis) or slightly concave with two foramina (Dendro- 
chelidonide and Tachornis); costal process small, manubrium rudi- 
mentary, keel very high; coracoid short, not implanted in a groove, 
the humero-coracoid fossa absent, the epicoracoid feebly developed; 
furcula widely U-shaped, with hypoclidium small and epiclidium 
obsolete; ribs, 6-7 on each side, the second to sixth pairs articulating 
with the margin of the sternum proper and not with the costal 
process; humerus very short, radius longer, metacarpals very long 
(except in Dendrochelidonide); ceeca absent; only the left carotid 
artery present (except in Micropodide, part) ;¢ semitendinosus muscle 
absent; anterior toes subequal, cleft to the base, the inner toe more 
or less reversible,® the hallux relatively small, directed inward or 
sometimes forward; deep plantar tendons coraciine (of type Va); 
tarsi never conspicuously longer than middle toe (with claw), always 
nonscutellate, sometimes feathered (occasionally the toes also); 
primaries 10, greatly elongated, either the tenth or ninth longest; 
secondaries relatively very short, 8-11 in number; alula composed 
of 2-3 feathers; rectrices 10, always shorter than primaries, the tail 
very variable in shape but usually more or less forked or emarginate, 
never graduated or distinctly rounded, the shafts of rectrices (in 
Subfamily Cheturine) often very rigid and extruded, or ‘‘spine- 
tipped.” 
KEY TO THE FAMILIES OF MICROPODII. 
a. Tarsus longer than first digit; head without crest or ornamental plumes, flanks 
without a downy or silky patch, and general plumage hard; rostral portion of 
cranium broad; nasals triradiate, overlapping frontals; ecto-ethmoid wide; 
vomer T-shaped, much expanded anteriorly; palatines notched exteriorly; 
metasternum convex, entire (with foramina in Tachornis); ulna shorter than 
second metacarpal; phalanges (except ultimate and penultimate) very short or 
obsolete; shoulder muscles and deep plantar tendons strictly cypseline. (Cos- 
mopolitan, except colder regions.)..............-.--.-.-. Micropodidze (p. 683). 
4 According to Garrod (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1873, 471) both carotids are present 
in Cypseloides fumigatus. 
b Said to be permanently reversed (the toes in pairs) in some genera, but I can not 
find that this is true from examination of specimens. 
