175 
BLACK-HEADED TODY. 
Todus melanocephalus, Spix. 
PLATE XVIII. 
Above cinereous, tinged with olive ; fore part of the head 
black ; under plumage yellow j wings black ; the feathers 
with yellowish margins ; bill distinctly notched ; the tip 
abruptly hooked. 
Todus melanocephalus, Spit, ii. PI. 9, fig. 2. 
The admirable precision with which the celebrated 
M. Desmarest (the best ornithologist that France 
has produced since the days of Brisson) has charac- 
terized his Todus cinereus , enables us not only to 
determine this as a different species, but, what is of 
still more importance, to point to that bird as sup- 
plying an indisputable and a very beautiful link be- 
tween this and Todus viridis', thus placing, beyond 
all doubt, this latter bird in the same series of spe- 
cies which includes the notched-bill todies : those, 
in fact, which Temminck and others would remove 
to a totally different part of the system. M. Desma- 
rest expressly states as a specific character of his 
Todier Tic-Tic, figured on the sixty-eighth plate 
of his beautiful volume on the Tanagers, Todies, 
