Mr. P. L. Sclater on the American Barbets. 
183 
former authorities in considering the Barbets as true Scansorials, 
I cannot join with Mr. G. R. Gray in arranging them as a sub¬ 
family of the Woodpeckers ( Picidee ). They appear to me to 
have every claim to occupy a distinct station,, and to be ranged 
as an independent family near the Toucans [Ramphastidce), to 
which latter group one of the genera ( Tetragonops) shows very 
considerable rapprochement. 
While the Woodpeckers are spread throughout the New World 
and over the whole of the Old World, except the Australian 
region, the Barbets are strictly confined to the tropics of both 
hemispheres. In Asia, Africa, and America, however, they 
are represented by different genera ; and when their full history 
and peculiarities are better known, it is not improbable that 
the Barbets of the eastern and western hemispheres may be 
separable into two subfamilies. The known genera of the 
Capitonidce , geographically arranged, are as follows :— 
America. 
Capita. 
Tetragonops . 
Africa. 
Pogonorhynchus*. 
Gymnobucco. 
Barbatuia. 
Trachyphonus. 
Asia. 
Megaleema. 
Psilopogon . 
Megaiorhynchus. 
Of these three regions the Neotropical is the poorest in num¬ 
ber of species, though, in brilliancy of colouring and in singularity 
of form (looking to Tetragonops ), the South-American Barbets 
are perhaps the most remarkable of the family. 
The Barbets occupy but a limited area in South America com¬ 
pared with many other of its peculiar families. Not one of them 
has yet been found to the north of the Isthmus of Panama, or 
south of the basin of the Amazon, and the species are chiefly 
confined to the countries traversed by the upper branches of this 
river, and to the mountain-valleys of New Granada, Ecuador, and 
Peru. We have few details recorded concerning their habits, 
but they are said to be seen generally in the fruit-trees, feeding on 
the fruit, and hopping from branch to branch like the Toucans f. 
* This term, proposed by Van der Hoeven in 1833 (Handb. d. Zool. ii. 
p. 446), has precedence over Lcemodon, generally adopted for this genus. 
f Interesting particulars concerning the habits of the Asiatic Capitonid <b 
