XVlll 
Barboza du Bocage (J. Sc. Lisb. vii. p. 227) described under the name of Coracias disbar the same 
species from Angola. 
In 1885 Captain Shelley (‘Ibis,’ 1885, p. 399) described Coracias lorti and pointed out the 
differences between the white-naped and the olive-crowned Boilers, treating the latter, however, 
only as a subspecies under the name of Coracias ncevia levaillanti. 
In 1887 Prof. Giglioli and Manzella (Icon. Avif. Ital. pi. xxxvi.) figured C. garrulus, and in 
1890 Dr. Sharpe published (P. Z. S. 1890, pp. 546, 552) an article on the Coraciidse of the Indian 
Begion, in which he subdivided Murystomus orientalis into three species— E. orientalis^ E. Iwtior, and 
E. calonyx, and separated the Solomon Island Broad-billed Boiler from Eurystomus crassirostris, 
giving it the name of Eurystomus solomonensis. 
The same year I described Coracias weigalli (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (6) vi. p. 351) and (‘ Ibis,’ 
1890, p. 386) gave the name of Coracias mosainhicus to the Olive-crowned Boiler. 
In the following year (‘ Ibis,’ 1891, pp. 99-102) I published a few brief notes on Eurystomus 
orientalis^ showing that E. Imtior and E. calonyx could not be specifically separated from E. orientalis^ 
and that these two names would therefore sink into synonyms of this species. 
In 1892 the long-delayed vol. xvii. of the ‘ Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum ’ was at 
last published, and in it appeared the Coraciidae by Dr. Sharpe, who therein separates the Boilers 
into two families, Leptosomatidae and Coraciidse, and these again into six genera, Leptosoma, Brachy- 
pteracias, Geohiastes, Atelornis, Coracias, and Eurystomus. As regards the species, of which he 
recognizes twenty-five besides two subspecies, he does not acknowledge Coracias weigalli, and renames 
the Olive-crowned Boiler Coracias olivaceiceps, but still retains Eurystomus Icetior and E. calonyx, 
including the former, however, only as a subspecies. 
CLASSIFICATION. 
Full particulars of the position of the Boilers towards the other allied families are given above, 
and as regards the differences between the subfamilies and genera, particulars of their distinctive 
characters are given in the body of the work, so that they do not require to be recapitulated here. 
The present family has not been so much subdivided by different authors as have some of those allied 
to it, and I have therefore not made much alteration in the views adopted by my predecessors. I 
have thus divided the family into three subfamilies, two of which are confined to Madagascar. The 
first of these subfamilies, the Coraciince, contains two genera, Coracias and Eurystomus ; the second, 
the Bracliypteraciince, also two, BracJiypteracias and Atelornis ; and the third, the Leptosomince, 
but one genus; the total number of genera being five. Herein I differ from my immediate pre¬ 
decessors, who make a separate family of the Eeptosomince instead of a subfamily, and divide the 
Brachypteracimw into three genera instead of two. 
