357 
on Dr. Jerdon’s ‘ Birds of India. 3 
or less on fruity and others (various pied species) on oleaginous 
seeds; but Jynx I believe to be purely insectivorous, and mainly 
an ant-devourer. I am rather surprised that this species did not 
fall under the observation of Herr Radde in Eastern Siberia. 
190. Indicator xanthonotus. 
This rare bird is beautifully represented in one of Mr, 
Hodgson^s drawings in the British Museum, one of the figures 
clinging (Woodpecker-like) to the bark of a tree. 
M egal m m i dm .—The birds of this family hop from twig to 
twig, like the ordinary Passeres , and should not be habitually 
represented clinging to the bole of a tree as Mr. Gould figures 
Megalcema nuchalis (B. As. pt. xvi.)—a remnant of the old error 
of subordinating them to the Picidce. The Megalcemidce (or Capi- 
tonidce) have a much nearer affinity to the Ramphastidce than they 
have to the Picidee. Apart from the anatomical conformity, it 
may be remarked that if the larger Toucans were unknown, the 
species of Aulacorhamphus and such a bird as Selenidera langs- 
dorffi (Gould, Mon. Rhamphastidce , pi. 33) would surely have been 
unhesitatingly assigned to the group of Barbets, to say nought 
of such forms as the Malayan Calorhamphus and the South 
American Tetragonops (Ibis, 1861, pi. vi., 1864, pi. x.); or 
compare with the forms brought together under Cuculidee (as 
Scythrops, Rhinortha, Phoenicophceus, Centropus, Crotophaga, 
Saw'othera, Cultrides, Coua, &c.), or those collated under 
Caprimulgidce (as AEgotheles , Podargus, Steatornis, Nyctibius , and 
Caprimulgus *) ! Skeletons of Toucan and Barbet are figured 
in Sir William Jardine’s f Contributions to Ornithology * (pis. 53 
and 54). I remember once winging a Wryneck, and placing 
it on the perpendicular trunk of a tree, which it immediately 
ascended so rapidly, with vigorous springs, and pressing its soft 
tail against the bark, that I nearly lost it; and I have since 
* The anatomy of the genus Batrachostomus is very different from that 
of Caprimulgus. The stomach is a highly muscular gizzard, as is that of 
Nyctibius, and there is a small gall-bladder. The sternum is small, sub¬ 
quadrate, with but a slight keel, and four deep emarginations behind ; the 
coracoids long and slender, and furcula like that of Caprimulgus, but more 
slender. 
2 B 
N.S.-VOL. II. 
