330 
DENDROCHELIDON CORONATES. 
tiny horizontal branch. The nest is nowhere more than ^ inch in thickness, is at most ^ inch deep in the deepest 
part, and can be exactly covered by half-a-crown.” Mr. Thompson writes “ that it is entirely filled b\ the 
solitary, rather largish, white, oval egg. The bird looks for all the world as if she were sitting on the branch, 
and no amount of looking from underneath would show you that there was a nest under her. The flakes ot 
bark of which the nest is composed are sometimes mixed with a few feathers, which, cemented with the 
inspissated saliva of the bird, serve to bind the whole together. Mr. Hume gives the measurements of an egg 
in his possession as O' 85 by 0‘ 5 5 inch. 
P I C A R I iE. 
Pam. CAPRIMULGIDiE. 
Bill with the culmen short and curved and the gape very wide, receding below the eyes, 
and furnished, in some, with stout bristles. Wings moderate, or long and pointed. Tail of ten 
feathers. Legs and feet very small. 
Sternum short, deeply keeled, the posterior edge emarginated. 
Plumage soft and mottled. Eyes very large. Of nocturnal habit. 
Subfam. STEATORNINiE. 
Bill large, inflated, the margin curved and receding beyond the posterior corner of the eye ; 
gape enormously wide ; base of upper mandible clothed with bristly feathers. Wings, when 
closed, scarcely reaching beyond the middle of the tail. Feet very small, the middle claw not 
pectinated. 
G-enus BATRACHOSTOMUS. 
Of small size. 
Bill short and enormously wide, both mandibles inflated at the sides and suddenly compressed 
at the tips ; culmen much curved and the tip of the upper mandible hooked. Nostrils horizontal, 
linear, placed in a membrane, which is completely covered by the frontal plumes ; gape smooth ; 
a series of erect branching plumes in front of the eyes. Wings short, rounded ; the 1st quill 
about two thirds of the length of the 4th and 5th, which are subequal and longest. Tail long, 
even at the tip much graduated, the lateral feathers very short. Legs and feet small ; the tarsus 
shorter than the middle toe, feathered more or less in front, the bare portion scutellate. Middle 
toe considerably longer than the lateral toes, both of which are joined to it at the base by a 
membrane ; hind toe short. 
Sternum small, with a shallow keel, with two deep emarginations in each half of the posterior 
edge. 
A tuft of long hair-tipped feathers springing from above the ears. 
