The femoro-caudal and semitendinosus muscles are always present, but the ambiens and accessory femoro-caudal are always absent. The accessory semitendinosus is nearly always present, but is absent in some of the Picidæ.

The Galbulidæ and the Bucconidæ have cæca and a nude oil-gland. The Rhamphastidæ, the Capitonidæ, and the Indicatoridæ have no cæca and a tufted oil-gland. The Picidæ have also a tufted oil-gland, and the cæca are either absent or only rudimentary.

In the arrangement of their feather-tracts these families do not differ very much from each other. In none of them is there an interscapular fork to the spinal tract, as there is in Upupa; but in all of them there is a post-scapular bare spinal space, as in Eurylamus and Hirundo. In the Indicatoridæ, the Galbulidæ, and the Bucconidæ the spinal tract passes between the scapulars and then divides into two branches, one of which passes on each side of this bare space; but in the Picidæ, the Rhamphastidæ, and the Capitonidæ this fork is omitted, and the spinal tract suddenly ends in a bare dor-al space. The arrangement of the feather-tracts on the rump varies, but that on the underparts is remarkably constant. There are two distinct feather-tracts on each side of the breast, coalescing on the shoulder (as in Upupa), except in the Galbulidæ, where they coalesce along the whole line. The Galbulidæ are also abnormal in having a transverse clavicular feather-tract on each side of the breast.

From these characters the suborder Scansores and the six families it contains may be diagnosed as follows:

1. The fourth digit is reversed.

2. The front plantar leads to the third digit only. The Scansores may be subdivided into two groups :

A. Passerine Scansores, with cæca and with a nude oil-gland. Bucconide: vomer absent; a clavicular feather-tract on each side of breast.

Galbulidæ vomer present; no clavicular feather-tract on each side of breast.

B. Picine Scansores, without cæca and with a tufted oilgland.

Picide: vomer slender, pointed, split; maxillo-palatines free. Indicatoride: vomer bifid; maxillo-palatines free; spinal feather-tract surrounding a post-scapular naked space, but otherwise continuous.

Capitonide vomer bifid; maxillo-palatines sometimes free, sometimes coalesced; spinal feather-tract interrupted by the absence of the anterior postscapular fork.

Rhamphastide: vomer truncated; maxillo-palatines co

alesced.

Heterodactyli.

The Trogons are very curious birds. They agree with the Scansores and the Pseudo-Scansores in having two toes in front and two behind; but they differ from both those groups (and from all other birds) in having the second digit (the inner front toe of anisodactyle birds) reversed. In a heterodactyle bird the hallux is the outer of the two hind toes, whereas in a zygodactyle bird the hallux is the inner one. This perfectly unique arrangement of the toes is correlated with a perfectly unique arrangement of the deep plantar tendons. The front plantar leads to the two front toes, and the hind plantar to the two hind toes. This arrangement (apparently so simple and natural) is in strong contrast with those of the two zygodactyle groups. In the Scansores the front plantar leads to the third digit only, whilst in the Pseudo-Scansores the hind plantar leads to the first digit (the hallux) only.

In other respects the Trogons are also remarkable. They combine the cranial characters of Caprimulgus with the pterylosis of Motacilla, and the thigh-muscles and sternum of Alcedo. They are schizognathous and holorhinal; and they are the only birds in the Order of Pico-Passeres which permanently retain their basipterygoid processes.

The Heterodactyli consist of one family only, the Trogonidæ.

V.-Notes on the Birds of Palawan. By JOHN WHITEHEAD.

(Plate II.)

I LEFT Labuan on 18th June, 1887, in a small tradingsteamer belonging to a Chinaman who had several stores on the southern end of Palawan. The steamer landed us at Taguso, on the S.E. coast (many miles south of Puerto Princesa), promising to return in two and a half months; but as she did not turn up until nearly four, I was unable to change my collecting-ground to the N.W. coast, as I had intended. When we landed in Taguso there were no Spaniards there, and the natives were doing much as they liked. Palawan is notorious for the bad characters which have taken refuge there from the Sulu and other islands; and twice since I have been in the "Far East" have the Sulus murdered the Chinese and sacked their stores.

In the interior of Palawan is another race, nearly related to the Bornean Dusans and Muruts; these people are under the thumb of the coast Sulus. The Sulus will not allow a Dusan to sell any jungle-produce to the Chinese, but oblige the Chinese to buy from them, as middle men. As one Sulu said to me, when I asked questions on this subject, "How was he to get a living if things were otherwise?"

All my attempts to make friends with the Dusans failed; the Sulus, though promising to help me, were all the time, I believe, influencing the Dusans against me, they thinking, no doubt, that my real object was to trade direct with the natives inland. After two weeks' palavering, I went some miles inland to visit a chief, but he would give me no assistance. A few days later I went to the mountains, my own men carrying sufficient provisions for three days; but the natives we met were very uncivil, refusing even to show us the right paths.

A few days after my return to the coast some fifty Dusans came to the store and threatened to attack us if we went inland again. As my party only numbered nine, and there was nothing to be gained by such short expeditions, I did not attempt the interior again in that direction.

Some weeks afterwards I made friends with a Dusan chief some distance off, and spent a week on a mountain about 2000 feet high. On this hill I collected Cryptolopha montis, but no other mountain-species. I should rather doubt if an island like Palawan, which has no land above 6000 feet in altitude, has a very numerous highland fauna.

The continued rain during the first months of my sojourn in Palawan made preserving large specimens very difficult, most of my birds being obliged to be dried before the fire.

The accommodation we had to put up with was very bad, the store being placed on the edge of a mud-swamp. I built my bed up with empty oil-cases and planks. At high water the sand inside the shed became quite soft. Numbers of disgusting land-crabs would heave up heaps of wet, stinking, black mud during the night all over the store, and often enough you would find a small eruption within a few feet of your bed in the morning. Then there was a peculiar red boiled-looking lobster, which made great heaps all over the place.

The Chinese smoked opium during a greater part of the day and were all ill with fever; this was only to be expected from the position of their house. All my men and I myself suffered from this several months after we had left the island.

I will now try to give some account of our collectinggrounds. The coast is fringed with high forest, reaching inland about half a mile; this fringe is probably left by the natives to break the wind and to shelter their rice-crops. In this forest Megapodes abound, Pittas and Jungle-fowl are plentiful, and, more rarely, that prince of birds, Polyplectron. In the trees above the most numerous are the various species of Pigeons and screaming Parrots, but nearly all the small species in the following list may be met with.

Behind this band of forest are plains of coarse grass, inhabited by two species of Quails, Cisticole, and Centrococcyges; a few white Egrets attend the Sulu cattle. This sort of scenery continues until you reach the foot of the mountains, no great distance from the coast. When the great rush of

birds from the far north takes place these plains have a much more lively aspect; hundreds of Wagtails, Pipits, Snipes, and other small Waders are continually flying up on your approach.

The swamps at the river-mouths have also their occupants -Sunbirds, Rhipiduras, and several species of Herons and Kingfishers, which are not met with elsewhere.

Towards the middle of September, after we had collected all the resident species within our reach, the sea-coast, with its rocky points and estuaries, was by far the most attractive hunting-ground; for about that time the great winter migration from the north reaches the coasts and forests of Palawan. Most Waders passed between 5 and 6 P.M., all in one direction, S.W.; if a small flock settled and was disturbed, never did the birds return, but still hurried on their southward course. By continuing this line of flight they would touch Balabac, and then turn due south down to the coast of Borneo, where some remain for the winter, but most seem to travel further still. When the wind was blowing gales from the S.W., bringing up heavy clouds loaded with rain, then was the liveliest time for moving; on calm, and even moderate days, it was seldom worth while to visit the coast. All these great travellers were as fat as butter, and in no state for a birdcollector.

The number of species as yet recorded from the island of Palawan is 157, of which 36 are peculiar to that island, 19 are found only in the Philippines, 36 in the Malayan, but not in the Philippine region, and 13 are common to both regions. Then there are no less than 49 migrants, which distribute themselves over the Eastern Archipelago during the northern winter. One species (Cryptolopha montis) is Bornean and not Malayan, one (Dendrophila frontalis) is Malayan but not Bornean, and one (Egithina viridis) has been hitherto only found in Borneo and Sumatra. Lastly comes Gallus bankiva, which is found throughout the Malayan and Philippine regions, but of which I believe no specimens are as yet known from Borneo.

Of 36 species peculiar to the island, 5 only have their