CONNECTION OF RASORES TO PERCHERS. 161 
the hornbills. Nor are there wanting other reasons, 
equally strong, against this popular theory. When we 
eall to mind that gregarious habits, and a constant par- 
tiality for the ground, are two of the most universal 
peculiarities of the Rasores, it appears very little likely 
that the plantain-eaters formed the connecting group 
between these two orders. The genera Musophaga 
and Corythaix are described by those who have seen 
them in their native haunts, as solitary; and Le 
Vaillant expressly states, that the beautiful green 
touracco of the Cape (C. persa) perches only at the 
extremities of the highest branches of trees, beyond 
gunshot. Here, then, we trace not the most distant 
resemblance, in manner or economy, between two 
genera, which have been supposed to connect the 
climbing with the gallinaceous birds. Let us look, 
therefore, among the cuckows for some genera which 
‘show this affinity more closely. Crotophaga, for instance, 
resembles the Rasores: both have ‘such a weak flight, 
that they seldom proceed far on the wing ; both 
habitually live, and build their nests, upon the ground ; 
and both associate in flocks. Among hundreds of the 
common Ani, which we have seen in South America, 
we never beheld one perch upon any thing higher 
than a bush; and this was but seldom, as they are 
habitually terrestrial birds, totally differing in economy 
and habits from the European or the American cuckows. 
Their scansorial feet is no serious objection to their affi- 
nity with the Rasores ; for,if the authority of Linneus © 
is to be trusted, there is actually one which has three 
toes before and one behind. But if we wish a closer 
affinity, we may look to the genus Leptostoma, already 
mentioned (157.), where the long legs, short convex 
wings, entire bill, and large size of the body, remind us 
immediately of a rasorial bird: but this affinity seems 
_ carried even still further by the Coccyzus Geoffroyi Tem., 
-—a bird represented* with a long and robust foot, 
nearly twice the length of all the other known species, 
* PP) Col7. 
VOL. II. M 
