Genus — S Y M A . 
Syma Lesson, Bull. Sci. Nat. Ferussac, Vol. XI., p. 443, 
1827 Type S, torotoro. 
Also spelt — 
Lyma Selby, Cat. Gen. Subgen., Types Aves, 1840, p. 36. 
Small Dacelonine birds with long bills, the edges of the mandibles serrated, 
long wings, long graduated tails, small legs, and feet with four toes. 
The bill is long, straight and pointed, of medium breadth at base, and 
rapidly tapering to tip ; nostrils small linear slits situated at base of bill, 
midway between ridge and mandible edges. Culmen keeled, laterals sloping 
outwards, but straight ; edges of upper mandibles strongly toothed, with 
backward sloping serrations at tip, the teeth being weaker towards middle 
and missing at base of bill. Edges of lower mandible simply serrated ; gonys 
near base, ascending towards tip. Rami straight and short ; inter-ramal 
space feathered. 
The wing has the third primary longest, fourth Httle shorter, and second 
and fifth subequal, the first being shorter than the seventh. 
The tail is long, more than two-thirds the length of the wing, rounded, 
weakly graduated, but outer tail-feathers short, not much more than two- 
thirds the length of the middle pair, which are scarcely longer than the 
succeeding three pairs. 
The feet are small. The short tarsus is covered with coarse scutes in 
front, neither scutellation nor reticulation being observed behind ; the toes 
are also covered with coarse transverse scutes. The inner toe is about equal 
in length to the hind toe and about two-thirds the length of the middle (^ne : 
the outer is little shorter than the middle toe, to which it is joined for the 
greater part. The claws are long, that of the middle toe being much elongated. 
The serrated edges of the bill are peculiar in this group, and this genus 
is always easily recognisable by this feature. 
I think it will be as well to determine the association herewith accepted 
as of family value, and call it the family Dacelonidae. Sharpe’s characters 
for his subfamily need reconsideration, and Miller’s long, detailed diagnosis 
VOL. VIL 
105 
