543 
PICARIAN BIRDS. 
This is delivered in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is given as a single 
whole note, but it may be repeated at intervals of a second for minutes at 
a time. The dart into the air for an insect interrupts this musical reverie only 
momentarily, and, on returning to their perch, the plaintive calling is continued; 
at other times their notes are uttered more rapidly, and may rise into a high, 
prolonged trilling. This may be ground out as revolutions of sound, when the 
effect is most peculiar.” Mr. Richmond says that on the river Escondido in 
Nicaragua he met with the black-cheeked jacamar (G. melanogenia ) on three or 
four occasions. “ It has a piercing cry resembling kee-u, with the first syllable 
very shrill, and strongly accentuated. The bird jerks its tail after the manner 
of a kingfisher.” 
Broad-Billed A single species (Jacamerops grandis ) is the sole representative, 
Jacamar. not only of this genus, but likewise of the second subfamily of the 
jacamars. This bird is found from British Guiana to Amazonia, and thence to 
Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. It is a bird of large size, fully 1(H inches in 
length, of the usual metallic-green colour above, chestnut below, with a large spot 
of white on the throat. It has a broader bill than any of the other members of 
the family, and is further easily recognisable by its large size. 
The Puff-Birds. 
Family BUCCONIDAE. 
Much resembling the Passerines in external appearance, and like them having 
twelve tail-feathers, as well as a shrike-like beak, the puff-birds are nevertheless 
true Picarians, having a bridged palate and zygodactyle feet; while the tendons 
which serve the toes are of the same type as in woodpeckers and honey-guides. 
There is no aftershaft to any of the contour-feathers; the oil-gland is naked; and 
the wing’-coverts rather resemble those of the Passerines in their arrangement than 
the rest of the Picarians. Like the other members of the present order, puff-birds 
are believed to nest in holes, and to lay white eggs, but really very little is known 
about them. Confined to South America, the puff-birds have no representatives in 
the Old World, or even in North America. Seven genera are admitted by Dr. 
Sclater, the names of which it will be unnecessary to mention, and forty-three 
species; the range of the family being from Honduras in Central America south¬ 
ward over the whole of South America, as far as Bolivia and Southern Brazil. 
Puff-birds are said to be generally woodland birds, being found singly or in pairs, 
and are considered to be of a rather sluggish and stupid nature. Dr. Sclater says 
that they are a “ purely arboreal and forest-frequenting group of birds, seeming to 
pass the greater part of their lives sitting upon the topmost or outermost branches 
of trees, generally selecting twigs that are dry and withered for their perch, and 
looking out for insects, which are captured flying, and which constitute their only 
food. The swallow-winged puff-birds ( Chelidoptera ) nest in holes in banks like 
kingfishers, and lay white eggs.” Mr. Richmond, when in Eastern Nicaragua, met 
with Dyson’s puff-bird (Bucco dysoni) in the forest on the Escondido River, where it 
was catching insects, and behaving very much like a tyrant-flycatcher. He says that 
