Genus— P OLYTELIS. 
Polytelis Wagler Abhand. Ak. Wissen. Munch., 
Vol. I., p. 489, 1832 .. .. .. .. Type P. swainsonii. 
Also spelt — 
Polyteles Gould, Proe. Zool. Soc. (Lond.), 1863, p. 232. 
Barrabandius Bonaparte, Consp. Gen. Av., Vol. I., 
p. 2, 1850 . . . . . . . . . . . . Type P. swainsonii . 
Medium-sized Polytelitine birds with hooked bills, long wings, long wedge- 
shaped tails and small feet. 
The bill is short, sharply hooked, the tip very long, no notch is present 
after the tip and the under edges of the upper mandible are thence slightly 
sinuate : the under mandible is short and broad, the tip broadly truncate, 
no distinct gap succeeding the tip and the lateral edges almost straight. 
The cere is naked, the nostrils appearing as circular holes about midway on 
each side of the culmen ridge. The lores are feathered and there is no bare 
eye space. 
The wing is long the first three primaries forming the tip, these are noticeably 
longer than the fourth : the second is longest, the third little shorter, the first 
slightly less. In a clean moulted specimen the third feather is seen to be more 
sharply pointed than the first two which are slightly incised on the inner webs, 
while the third is not. 
The tail is very long, strongly wedge-shaped, the feathers narrow and 
pointed, save the middle two which are much elongated and narrowed, but 
not pointed. The feet are normal. 
This genus was placed by Salvadori in the Catalogue of the Birds in the 
British Museum in his subfamily Palceornithince, but it showed much more 
superficial resemblance to the Platycercine group. It had been separated 
from these on osteological grounds as the furcula- is present, while it is missing 
in the Platycercine species. 
However, D’Arcy Thompson’s investigations into the cranial osteology 
absolutely confirmed the value of the deductions drawn from superficial features, 
pointing out that the skull-characters were truly Platycercine and quite 
separable from the “ alexandri ” type. He wrote : “ The characters 
common to ( Platycercus , Nanodes , Neophema, Psephotus, Nymphicus) are 
precisely the characters to which I have called attention in Aprosmictus, Polytelis, 
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