POMATORIIINUS MONTANUS. 
Bokkrek, of the Javanese. 
Pomatorhinus montanus, Horsf. Syst Arrangement of Birds from Jam, Linn. 
Trans. Vol XIII. p. 165. 
TO the concise remarks on the affinity of Pomatorliinus, which have been 
annexed to the generic character, it is necessary to add a few details regarding the 
comparisons which I have instituted, in order to ascertain, as far as possible, the 
relations of this genus, and its place in the natural system. Although it has been 
placed among the slender-billed birds, the Tenuirostres of M. Cuvier, it possesses 
various characters by winch it is related to the Dentirostres of the same author. 
The most obvious of these are> a great validity of the bill and tarsi comparatively 
with other birds of the family of Tenuirostres. In reviewing the Dentirostres for 
this comparison, one genus prominently presented itself, which possesses various 
points of analogy to the slender-billed birds. These shew themselves in the struc- 
ture of the bill and feet, in the manners, and in the food. Deriving the latter from 
sweet substances, which it extracts from flowers and other parts of vegetables, it has 
been named Melliphaga by Lewin, who first observed and described it in its native 
country, and Philcdon by Cuvier. -And from the more accurate examination of 
later ornithologists, it appears that various birds, which have been placed in the 
genus Certhia of Linnaeus, which comprised a large proportion of the slender-billed 
birds, belong to the genus Melliphaga : for instance — Certhia carunculata, Certhia 
cardinalis, Certhia atricapilla, and many others. It may be observed, however, that 
the genus Melliphaga is, even at the present period, not defined with critical accu- 
racy, and that birds of very different structure and habits are promiscuously arranged 
in it. The most prominent characters of Melliphaga are an arched bill, moderately 
compressed at the sides, rising in the middle to an elevated culmen or back, a lower 
mandible, nearly straight, and a covering to the posterior portion of the nares. In 
the feet, the two exterior toes are slightly connected at the base, and the claw of 
the hind toe is comparatively stout. These characters are also observed in 
Pomatorliinus ; a more minute detail of the peculiarities of Melliphaga is therefore 
required to shew those points in which these two genera arc different. In Melliphaga 
the extremity of the upper mandible is decidedly and uniformly notched ; the nares 
extend, in form of a longitudinal groove, from the base towards the middle of the 
bill; their covering is partial and membranaceous; they are pervious, or pass into each 
other from the opposite sides ; the edges of the upper mandible are slightly bent 
inward, while the apex is laterally rounded and distended. 
