4
1. Barbus proprement dits (i. e. Capitonidoe).
2. -------- Tamatias (i. e. Bucco, Linn.) \ (Bucconidæ \
3. -------- Barbacous (i.;e. Monasa, V.) ƒ \mccomdoe-)
In the correctness of these divisions we see how far in advance
Le Vaillant was of preceding authors, and have to lament that
from his having used only French terms in his writings, others,
who merely latinized his names, have obtained the credit of being
the authors of many scientific discoveries which are rightly due
to him alone.
Neither Illiger nor Vieillot kept clearly apart the Bucconidoe
and Capitonidoe, though the latter in his ( Analyse’ (1816) first
formed the important genera Monasa for Le Vaillantes Barbacous,
and Çapito (with the type B. cayanensis), from which (as the
earliest proposed genus in the family) the Capitonidoe take their
name,
Temminck however employed Capito for the fissirostral Buc*
conidoe, and Bucco for a genus of Capitonidoe, exactly..reversing
the correct use of these two names. His example was followed
by Wagler, Swainson, and other writers. Wagler in his ‘ Systema
Avium/ 1827, gives an excellent monograph of the two genera
Bucco and Monasa, under the titles Capito and Lypomix. He
includes 14 species in these genera ; Le Vaillant in 1806 had
given only 7 ; we are now acquainted with more, than 30, an
illustration of the rapid progress lately made in the extension of
the number of species of birds. '
To Mr. G. R. Gray is due the credit of proposing to restore to
the present family the Linnæan appellation Bucco ; correcting in
this, as in many other instances, the inaccurate practice of using
generic names m different senses to those originally attached to
them by their first founders. In his {Genera of Birds3 he makes
the present group the first subfamily of Alcedinidoe, under the
title Bucconinoe, or Puff-birds. The scansorial Buccones of Temminck
and others he places under the term Capitoninoe, or Barbets,
as the first subfamily j)f aPicidoe. The only alteration I
venture to suggest to this arrangement is to raise both these
groups to the rank of families, retaining them respectively
among the Fissirostres and Scansores, in the places assigned to
them by Mr. Gray. The peculiar structure of. the feet and
eccentric habits of the Puff-birds are, I think, sufficient to warrant
our doing this in their case, and what we know of the mode
of life of the Barbets seems also to favour the-idea of their being
constituted a distinct family of Scansores*.
* Mr. Wallace tells me that the Capito amazoninus (?) observed by him
at Guia, on the Rio Negro, feeds on fruit, and seems like a little Toucan in
its habits.
5
I have thought it necessary to make the preceding remarks in
order to vindicate the usage of the name Bucconida for the present
family; the Prince of Canino having in his ‘Conspectus
Geneirum Avium/ notwithstanding Mr. G. R. Gray’s before-men-
tioned corrections, continued the terms Bucco and Capito in their
respectively perverted senses,—precisely the opposite to those
assigned to them by their original propounders.
The members of the family Bucconida are inhabitants of the
most;, tropipal portion of the new world, ranging from about
I5R-N.L. to 30° south of the equator, and not passing the ridge
of the Andes as far as I am aware.
The generic divisions hitherto established among the Bucco-
nidfCe and their types are as follows :—
Bucco, Linn.
B. collaris, Lath.
Tamatia, Guv.
T. macrorhyncha (Gm.).
Chaunornis, G. R. Gray.
C. tamatia (Gm.).
Cyphos, Spix.
C. macrodactylus, Spix.
Mai}acoptila, G. R. Gray.
M.fusca (Gm.|.v/|
Nonnula, Sclater.
N. rubecula (Spix). .
Monasa,Vieill. (Lypornix, Wagl. Scotocharis, Gloger.
Monastes, Nitzsch.)
M. atra (Bodd.).
Chelidoptera, Gould. (Brachypetes, Sw.)
| C. tenebrosa (Pall.).
Of these divisions I propose to adopt only four, namely Bucco,
Malacoptila, Monasa, and Chelidoptera, as truly generic; the
others may be placed at the head of different subsections to
mark out slighter differences, in the manner adopted by Mr. G.
R. Gray in his recently published Catalogues of the British
Museum.
In the first genus, Bucco, with fifteen species, the gonys is
always curved upwards from the base towards the apex; the upper
mandible, which is strongly hooked over the under, is deeply