In studying the group of rail-forms and their kin we meet with many interesting types.[1] This great rail group appears to be connected with or linked to the pygopodous birds or divers[2] by two genera of very interesting and as yet little known birds. These are Heliornis and Podica of the family Heliornithidæ, and commonly known as "finfeet." Very little is known of their anatomy, and absolutely nothing of their eggs and nidification.[3]
New Zealand, which furnishes us with so many remarkable types, has another genus leading off from the rails. These are the "ocydromes,"[4] curious birds with perfect wings yet incapable
Fig. 2.—The Trumpeter {Psophia leucoptera). By the author, after Mitchell.
of flight. They are doomed to speedy extinction, and their anatomy and life history stand sadly in need of careful working up.
Another great center of bird life is seen in the plover-snipe group, and some important types link it as "outliers" with various other groups. For instance, in the first place, we have that
- ↑ Our room here will not permit of more than to name some of these, and the student will do well to look into the history of that peculiar genus of exaggerated gallinules known as Notornis, as N. mantelli, and its fossil relative Aptornis, described by Owen, and both from New Zealand. Porphyrio and the remarkable genus Tribonyx of Australia are still others to be especially noted. They all belong to the gallinuline series of subpartial rail outliers.
- ↑ Pygopodes.
- ↑ Prince Maximilian of Wied claims to have shot a male H. fulica that had under its wings two new-hatched, naked young. This species occurs from Guatemala to Paraguay, while Podica is an African genus.
- ↑ Ocydromus.
