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Show 604 MR. F. E. BEDDARD ON SOME POTNTS [May 19 ditions obtaining in Bacelo \ Prof. Garrod never carried out the intention expressed in the above quotation. I propose in the present paper to supply this deficiency and to bring before the Society other facts in the anatomy of the group. Pterylosis. The Kingfishers have for the most part a tufted oil-gland. But I find that in Cittura cyanotis and C. sanghirensis the oil-gland is distinctly nude, and I have a note by M r . Forbes to the effect that that is also the case with three species of Tanysiptera. In the latter genus, moreover, there are only ten rectrices; in other Kingfishers (including Cittura) twelve. According to Dr. Gadow's table2, the Alcedinidse and Cypselidaa are the only families of Picarian birds in which the 5th cubital remex may be either absent or present. Bacelo, Ceryle, and Sauropatis are aquintocubital; Cittura, Alcedo, and Halcyon are quintocubital. The feather-tracts of a few species have been examined by Nitzsch. I have studied those of a few others. In the majority of Kingfishers the ventral tract branches in the pectoral region on each side into a stronger outer and a weaker inner branch, the latter being continuous as far as the cloaca. Nitzsch remarks of "A. collaris" (-•Sauropatis chloris) that it is " strikingly distinguished by having the outer branch of the inferior tract very near the main stem." I find that a broad pectoral tract, barely, if at all, distinguishable into two branches, characterizes the following species of Sauropatis, viz.: S. sordidus, S. vagans, and S. chloris; it is very possibly a mark of the genus. In this genus, as in Bacelo (figured by Nitzsch), in Halcyon and in Cittura there is a very long gap sparsely feathered which lies between the anterior and posterior closely feathered parts of the spinal tract. In Alcedo ispida, on the other hand, the trunk part of the spinal tract is closely feathered throughout. I find in Ceryle americana an intermediate condition, the dorsal gap being but slightly marked. It v\ill be observed that these various divergences in the arrangement of the pterylae correspond in every case to a missing 5th remex. Tendons of the Wing. The tendons of the tensor patagii brevis show three modifications among the Kingfishers, which are shown in the accompanying drawings (figs. 1-3) by the late M r . W . A. Forbes. In Alcedo ispida, Fiirbringer (Unters. z. Morph. u. Syst. Vogel, Taf. xxiii. fig. 17), w e have the simplest conditions. The tendon in question is perfectly simple, without branch or complication of any kind. Alcyone lessoni is precisely the same. 1 Ibid. p. 516. 2 " Aves" in Bronn's ' Thier-Reich,' Syst. Theil, p. 82. |