1842.] Notes on various Indian and Malayan Birds. 167 



a typical Regulus, but straighter and less downy ; sides of the rump, 

 bordering the broad yellow stripe, black ; and the wings underneath 

 whitish tinged with yellow, the feathers of downy texture : beak 

 horny-brown, the lower mandible paler; and legs apparently dark- 

 greenish. From Darjeeling, where stated to be very rare. 



The affinities of this genus I have long considered to be with the 

 Woodpeckers, and not with the Cuckoos ; their feet are formed exactly 

 as in the former group, not as in the latter ; and they are accordingly 

 known to climb the boles of trees, in the cavities of which they deposit 

 numerous shining white eggs, wherein also they resemble the Wood- 

 peckers. I am unacquainted with the conformation of their soft parts, 

 further than that the traveller Bruce informs us, of his " Bee Cuckoo," 

 (Appendix to 'Travels to discover the source of the Nile/ v. 179), that 

 " the tongue is sharp- pointed, can be drawn to almost half its length 

 out of the mouth beyond the point of the beak, and is very 

 flexible," a statement which I did not remark until long after I had 

 arriyed at the opinion here expressed. If my view be correct, 

 it will probably be further confirmed by the stomach proving 

 to have its muscular coat considerably more developed than in the 

 Cuckoos ; by the absence of cceca, as in the Woodpeckers (normally*), 

 these existing in all the Cuckoo tribe which I have examined ; and 

 by the sternal apparatus, the form of which is very different in the 

 Woodpeckers and Wryneck from what it is in the Cuckoos. The 

 Barbets (Bucco) are quite distinct from either, and more nearly al- 

 lied in internal conformation to the South American group of Toucans 

 (Ramphastida) , which they even resemble in the peculiar character of 

 having short imperfect clavicles ; while the African group of Touracos 

 (Musophagidce) , also allied, is remarkable for having the clavicles fully 

 developed, but permanently joined together by cartilage only to con- 

 stitute the furcula, as I have observed in three different species. 



6. Bucco Franklinii, Nobis, (Franklin's Barbet.) Allied to B. cyanops. 

 Length 8 inches, of wing 3| inches, and tail 2J inches : bill to forehead 

 j- 6 inch, and to hind-angle of upper mandible 1 - inch ; tarse | 

 inch. Colour of the upper-parts vivid-green, of the under paler and 



* Professor Owen once remarked the presence of cceca in a specimen of the British 

 Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) , several of which same species 1 have since 

 examined without finding any.— E. B. 



