. 
SCANSORES. — GENERAL REMARKS. 141 
perching birds into a circle-of their own, has already been 
intimated. Every writer, since the days of Linneus 
(who at first actually classed them in the same genus), has 
placed the motmots (Prionites) and the toucans (Ram- 
phastos) close together, not only from the similarity of 
their habits, but from the structure of the tongue, which 
in both is long, and so much ciliated at its sides as to 
resemble a feather ; so far, therefore, the resemblance is 
unquestionable. But the feet of the motmot are totally . 
different from the toucan ; they are not scansorial, but of 
that particular structure so common among the Fissi- 
rostres. ‘The toucans we know, from personal observation, 
to be gregarious, living in flocks, and seeking their food 
from the tops of lofty trees ; the motmot is solitary, hid- 
ing in the deep shades of the forests, and, like other air- 
feeding birds, is always found sitting nearly motionless. 
Here, then, is a very obvious departure from the structure 
and habits of the toucan. The question, then, is, to what 
does it lead? If to the hornbills (which has been in- 
ferred from the structure of the feet), we should have 
no diminution in the size of the bill ; which, in both the © 
hornbills and toucans is equally large, but in the motmot 
of an ordinary and proportionate size: we should further 
expect a bird which was gregarious, since both these 
groups are so. Yet there is nothing in the motmot, 
beyond its feet, which will at all assimilate it to the 
perchers; while its fissirostral habit of catching its food 
upon the wing, and the discovery of the broad-billed 
species, Prionites platyrhynchus*, seem to us a con- 
clusive argument for placing this genus in the fissirostral 
order, as more intimately related to the jacamars (Gal- 
bula) than to any other known genus. 
most extraordinary type yet discovered in this family. So far from any 
* coalition ’’ being apprehended, it thus appears that the Society might 
well be grateful to those who will take the trouble of making known their 
unexamined stores. Although I have the drawing of the details of this 
bird before me, I have lost its description, so that this latter can only be 
supplied by an authorised member of the Zoological Society. Can this be 
the Saurothera Californica of Lesson, Traité d’Orn. p. 146.? or are there 
two or more species ? R 
* Linn. Tr. vi. 92. 
