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Show 1885.] MR. F. E. BEDDARD ON THE CUCKOOS. 169 The genera which I have studied myself are the following:- Cuculus. Eudynamis. Cacomantis. Phcenicophaes. Piaya. Crotophaga. Saurothera. Geococcyx. Coccyzus. Centropus. Diplopterus. Pyrrhocentor. Guira. I have also been able to incorporate some deductions from the M S . notes of m y two predecessors upon Chrysococcyx and Coua. There remain therefore a considerable number of genera which I have not been able to examine ; such an omission will doubtless take away from the value of the scheme of classification proposed here ; but in any case the facts recorded will, I trust, remain as facts and be at least an assistance towards a proper classification even if they do not indicate its main outlines. Mr. Sharpe, in a paper on the Cuckoos of the Ethiopian Region **, distinguishes two subfamilies-(1) Cuculina, including only Cuculus and Coccystes, and (2) Phcenicophaince, including Phosnicophaes,Coua, Centropus, &c. This division appears to me to be, so far as I have been able to follow it by a study of the anatomical characters of the several genera, a natural one. I have separated, as will be seen later, Phcenicophaes and Eudynamis from the other genera belonging to Mr. Sharpe's subfamily Phoenicophainse into a distinct subfamily, for which I retain his name, including the other genera Centropus, Coua, &c. in a separate subfamily which may be termed Centropodinse; nevertheless there is a far closer agreement between the Phoenicophainse and Centropodinse than between either of these and the Cuculinse. Mr. Sharpe further remarks that it is difficult to place the American genus Neomorphus away from Phcenicophaes ; that it is impossible to separate the American from the Old-World Cuckoos I hope to be able to show in the present paper. The structures which I have chiefly made use of for classificatory purposes are, (1) the muscles of the thigh, (2) the syrinx, (3) the pterylosis ; the variations exhibited elsewhere do not appear to me to be of sufficient importance to serve as a standard of classification. It may, however, be worth while to record briefly some of the differences that I have noticed in other structures besides the three which I propose to describe more or less in detail. The gall-bladder is stated by Owen 2 to be wanting in almost all the Cuculidae. This statement is by no means correct; indeed the gall-bladder appears to be very generally present and those cases where it is absent are the exceptions; it is present in Saurothera, Coccyzus, Pyrrhocentor, and Cuculus, but appears to be absent in Crotophaga, and occasionally in Centropus : Coua according to Milne-i P. Z. S. 1873, p. 578. 2 Comp. Anat. vol. ii. p. 177. |