THE ROYAL NATURAL HISTORY. 
BIEDS. 
• CHAPTER Vlir. 
The Picarian Birds,— continued . 
The Cuckoos. 
Family CUCULIDJE. 
The toucans form the last family of the subordinal group, known as climbing* 
picarians, or Scansores. The cuckoos bring us to the first representatives of a 
second group, termed cuckoo-like picarians, or Coccyges. In this assemblage the 
palate of the skull is of the bridged, or desmognathous type; while the arrange¬ 
ment of the tendons of the muscles of the foot is different from that in the first 
group. As a family, the cuckoos are specially distinguished by having a 
zygodactyle foot, and a naked oil-gland; the after-shafts to the body-feathers 
are wanting, and the arrangement of the feathers shows the tract on the back 
forked between the shoulders. They are birds of universal distribution, very 
VOL., iv.— i 
