Sclater on the Sy sterna Avium. 
3 1 
scutelliplantares”) , with which it agrees in the structure of the 
plantar scutes (‘ Tentamen,’ p. 55) . Nitzsch associates Uptipa 
with Buceros and Alcedo in his family Lipoglossae of the Picariae. 
There can be no longer any question, I think, that the latter view 
is correct, and that Upupa is more nearly allied to the Bucerotidag 
than to any other group. Some of the thin-billed Bucerotidag 
of the genus Toccus even resemble Upupa in habit and external 
appearance. The palate of Upupa at once shows that it is no 
Passerine bird.* Next to the Upupidag must come also the small 
African group Irrisoridae, as was first suggested by Strickland, 
and has been amply shown by Dr. Murie in his excellent disser- 
tation on the Upupidae and their relationships.! 
2. Eurylcemus. The Eurylaemidae were placed by Gray and 
most of the older authors near the Kingfishers and Motmots, 
i. e. outside the Passeres, as now restricted. Mr. Wallace, I 
believe, first started the idea that they are the representatives of 
the Cotingidae in the Old World, and has thus arranged them in 
his ‘ Geographical Distribution. There is now no doubt that 
the Eurylaemidae are truly Passerine, as I pointed out in this 
Journal in 1872, from an examination of the sternum, § and as 
Mr* Garrod subsequently confirmed from the form of the palate, || 
although they are singularly divergent from all other known 
Passeres in having the Jlexor hallucis £ ongus connected by a vin- 
culum with the Jlexor digitorum profundus. 
3. Todus , associated by Cabanis with Todirostrum in the 
Tyrannidae, and by Sundevall with the Piprinae, should be cor- 
rectly placed, as I have already shown, ®ff from its sternal char- 
ters, next to the Momotidae, and has nothing to do with the true 
Passeres. The pterylosis confirms this view.|| 
4. Euryceros was formerly referred by Gray to the Bucerotidag, 
but at my suggestion, I believe, was removed in his last work 
(‘Hand-list,’ ii. p. 21) to a much more natural position among 
the Sturnidag. A glance at its feet is sufficient to show that it is 
a laminiplantar Oscine. Mr. Sharpe has recently included 
Euryceros in the heterogeneous assemblage which he has united 
* Cf. Huxley, P. Z. S. 1867, p. 447. 
t Ibis, 1873, p. 181. t Vol. ii. p. 294. 
§ Ibis, 1872, p. 177. || P. Z. S. 1877, p. 449. 
H Ibis, 1872, p. 177. See also Murie, Ibis, 1872, p. 410. 
ft Nitzsch, Pterylogr. p. 89. 
