XVI 



In Galhula viridis there are only ten sacral vertebrae, and the first dorsal vertebra only has 

 an inferior process, the second wanting it. The number of uncinate processes is only four, the 

 most posterior dorsal one of G. chalcothorax being absent in this species. 



In Brachygalba the palatine keels do not quite meet each other anteriorly, and the manu- 

 brium sterni is distinctly bifid, as it is in most Passeres, Merops, and some other groups. The 

 dorsal vertebrae have no hypapophyses at all. The last two are ankylosed with the sacrum. 

 There are five pairs of uncinate processes. The last three cervical vertebrae have well-developed 

 hypapophyses, of which those on the twelfth and thirteenth are unsymmetrical, whilst that on 

 the last (fourteenth) is stronger and nearly simple. 



III. History of the Jacamars. 



The Jacamars were mostly united by the older authors with the Kingfishers ; but so long 

 ago as 1760 the accurate French naturalist Brisson made a genus {Galhula) for their reception*. 

 Brisson recognized two species of the genus [Galhula viridis and Vrogalha jyaradisea, as here 

 denominated). Latham, in his ' Index Ornithologicus ' (1790), was the first systematist to 

 adopt the genus Galhula in its classical form, and assigned four species to it — Galhidce viridis, 

 grandis, jiaradisea, and alhirostris — which names, however, were simply latinized from terms 

 previously bestowed upon them in his 'Synopsis.' 



In 1802 Audebert and VieiUot figured such of the Jacamars as were then known in the first 

 volume of their ' Oiseaux Dorees.' Vieillot, who seems to have been the sole author of this 

 part of the work, includes among the Jacamars the same four species as are given by Latham. 

 Four years subsequently (1806), Levaillant published, in the second volume of his ' Oiseaux de 

 Paradis,' his 'Histoire Naturelle des Jacamars.' Levaillant's essay on this group is certainly 

 much in advance of those of his predecessors. He gives the first distinct account of Galhula 

 ruficauda, and distinguishes the " Jacamars a bee courbe " for the first time under the title 

 Jacamerops, which has since been generally retained for this section in its Latin form. At the 

 same time Levaillant fell into errors, in giving a place in his new genus to what is undoubtedly 

 a fictitious species (his " Grand Jacamar ") and in supposing that his " Jacamarici " [Jacamerops 

 grandis) was from the Moluccas. In a supplementary article on the Jacamars attached to his 

 ' Histoire Naturelle des Promerops et Guepiers,' Levaillant added two more species .to the genus 

 under French terms, thus recognizing all together seven species of the group as now known to us. 



After Levaillant there is little to record in the history of these birds until 1817, when 

 Vieillot's article '' Jacamars," in the seventeenth volume of the ' Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire 

 Naturelle ' was published. Vieillot here added two to the classical roll of the genus Galhula, 

 namely G. leucogastra and G. tridactyla. But both of these birds had been already figured by 

 Levaillant, as above mentioned, although Vieillot was the first to give them Latin names. In 

 1823 Vieillot again published an account of the Jacamars, in the " Ornithologie " of the ' Tableau 

 Encyclopedique et Methodique,' but recognized no more than the seven species of Levaillant 

 {Urogalha paradisea, Galhula viridis, G. ntficauda, G. alhirostris, G. leucogastra, Jacamaralcyon 

 tridactyla, and Jacamerojps grandis). These seven species of Jacamars Avere in fact all that were 



* Tor the derivation of this term see p. 8, infra. 



