rings forming the box are not so completely fused, and the larger intrinsic muscle arises much lower down-in fact, at the commencement of the box.

COLII

Definition.Aftershaft present; oil gland tufted. Muscle formula, AXY; biceps slip present. Cæca absent. Skull desmognathous.

Of the family Coliide there is only a single genus, African in range and including something like nine species.

The toes are remarkable for the fact that the zygodactylous condition can be assumed; the first toe can be directed forwards, the fourth backwards. There are ten rectrices; a tufted oil gland and an aftershaft are present.

1

The pterylosis described by NITZSCH is remarkable for the width of the pterylæ. The ventral tract almost completely covers the ventral side of the body; towards the outside the feathers are stronger, but there is no outer branch. The spinal tract is narrow and strongly feathered upon the neck; on the occiput is a bare space, reminding one of that in a similar position in the Trochilidae. There is no median spinal apterion.

In their myology the colies are remarkable for possessing a fleshy biceps slip. The tensor patagii brevis muscle is very extensive, and reaches nearly as far as the fore arm. Its very short and single tendon sends back a passerine' slip, oblique in direction, and is also continued over the arm.

The pectoralis slips to both longus and brevis are present. The deltoid, as in so many allied birds, is very extensive. The leg muscular formula is AXY-. There is only one peroneal.

The semimembranosus is inserted below and independently of the semitendinosus. The latter gives off a tendinous slip to the gastrocnemius.

The deep flexor tendons blend before giving off branches to the toes.

'Hence the term ' pamprodactylous,' sometimes used for this family.

Besides the hornbills and Macrochires the colies are the only flying birds in which the latissimus dorsi metapatagialis is absent.

The colies have only the left carotid.

The stomach is not very muscular. The liver is small and has a gall bladder. There are no cæca.

The intestines

are short, but capacious, measuring nine inches.

The syrinx has been figured by JOHANNES MÜLLER.' It is quite typically tracheo-bronchial.

The skeleton and the affinities of Colius have been elaborately treated of by MURIE.2

There are thirteen cervical vertebræ. Four ribs reach the sternum.

The skull is holorhinal, without basipterygoid processes, and desmognathous. After a careful maceration GARROD 3 was unable to find a vomer, the presence of which had been previously asserted (see fig. 95, p. 203).

4

TROGONES

Definition.-Feet zygodactyle by reversion of second toe. Skull schizognathous with basipterygoid processes. Oil gland nude. Left carotid alone present. Ceca short. Ambiens absent. Of deep plantar tendons Fl. hall. supplies I. and II., Fl. dig. III. and IV. Vinculum joins them before bifurcation of each:

This family is chiefly American, but also African and Asiatic.5

The feathers of the trogons have very well developed aftershafts. The pterylosis is remarkable for the nonbifurcation of the spinal tract, which is continuous as a single tract to the base of the naked oil gland. It is dilated to form a rhomboidal area behind the scapula.

There are twelve rectrices.

Ueber die bisher unbekannten typischen Verschiedenheiten der Stimmorgane der Passerinen,' Abh. k. Akad. Wiss. 1845.

p. 263.

On the Genus Colius, its Structure and Systematic Place,' Ibis, 1872,

*Notes on the Anatomy of the Colies (Colius),' P. Z. S. 1876, p. 416. By MURIE.

Trogon gablicus is an extinct species from the Miocene of France.

Of the muscles of the thigh which Professor GARROD regarded as of importance there are present the femorocaudal and the semitendinosus, the accessories of both being absent. The femorocaudal is proportionately larger than in almost any bird. There is no glutaus primus. The obturator internus is small and oval. The singular arrangement of the deep plantar tendons is used in the definition of the family. The two tendons concerned each supply two digits, this arrangement being unique. In the fore limb there is no biceps slip to the patagium. The patagial muscles and tendons are much complicated; they have been figured by GARROD for Trogon puella. powerful tensor

The very
brevis muscle runs as a muscle
nearly to the extensors of the
fore arm; it has a short broad
tendinous insertion on to the
fascia of the outer surface of
the arm, and this is specially
developed, a line running back
to the humerus, as in the
Passeres (see p. 172). Deeper
than this are two parallel

tendons of these the one nearer the humerus terminates exactly like the single one of the Passeres; the other tendon ends as in the Pici, elsewhere described. There is no expansor secundariorum.

The tongue of the trogons is short and three-sided. It is pointed in front. The left lobe of the liver is a little the smaller. Among GARROD's notes are the following measurements of the intestines and the cæca in three species of trogons, which we reproduce:

There is no crop; the gizzard is thin-walled and large; the proventriculus is zonary.

The most remarkable matter concerning the osteology of the trogons is the curious mistake which was originally made as to the nature of the palate. HUXLEY, in his paper upon the classification of birds, came to the conclusion, from a single incomplete skull of Trogon Reinwardti, that the skull was, like its presumed allies, desmognathous. Later FORBES' was able to show in five species that the maxillo-palatines were not united across the middle line, but that they terminated in a spongy expansion some way from each other. The end of the vomer is thin and filiform. The lacrymal is somewhat styliform, and reaches the jugal bar; there appear to be no ossified ectethmoids. The palatines of the trogons are peculiar. Instead of being flat plates, as in Coracias, for example, the outer portions of the bones are bent upwards, and cling closely to the basis cranii. The two palatines are, moreover, fused posteriorly, and the pterygoids where they articulate with them are expanded. They are holorhinal with impervious nares. The trogons have fifteen cervical vertebra. The atlas is perforated by the odontoid process; four or five ribs reach the sternum. The sternum has two incisions behind, and the bifid spina externa.

CORACIÆ

Definition.- Aftershaft present Muscle formula, AXY; expansor secundariorum present. Ceca generally present. Desmogna

thous.

The Coraciidæ are entirely Old-World birds, chiefly massed in the Ethiopian region, but extending as far as the Note on the Structure of the Palate in the Trogons,' P. Z. S. 1881,

p. 836.

Australian. The genera allowed by DRESSER in his recent monograph of the family are Coracias, Eurystomus, Brachypteracias, Atelornis, and Leptosomus. They are distributed by him in three subfamilies; the first two genera constitute the first, the next two the second, while Leptosomus is placed in a subfamily by itself. The rollers have an anisodactyle foot; the feathers have an aftershaft; but the oil gland is nude. The pterylosis has been studied by NITZSCH, FORBES, and by myself. In Eurystomus orientalis the ventral tracts commence as two from the very first; at the angle of the mandible they are double. Though NITZSCH has figured the pterylosis of the throat of Coracias garrulus as if it were continuous, I do not find any difference from Eurystomus in this particular. On the breast the two divisions of the ventral tract remain single; there is hardly a trace of the outer branch. The tracts are here rather wide. The dorsal pterylosis narrows gradually until between the shoulders, where the feathering is very strong, and where it divides into two branches; these unite again just at the articulation of the femora, and finally terminate a little way in front of the oil gland.

Leptosomus has a slightly different pterylosis; the ventral tract is single to about an inch behind the junction of the mandibular rami; for a considerable distance the ventral band is continuous with the dorsal, so that the lateral neck spaces do not commence until about threequarters of an inch above the shoulder. About the middle of the sternum the pectoral tract of either side gives off ar outer branch some four feathers wide and slightly stronger than the main tract. The two forks of the dorsal tract run in between each other, the narrower posterior portion between the limbs of the wider anterior portion, as is the case with so many birds. FORBES has noted that Atelornis has a pterylosis which agrees with that of Eurystomus, already described.

Leptosomus differs, however, from the remaining Coraciida in the possession of powder-down patches, which were first See anatomical preface to DRESSER'S monograph of the group.