The Ceram Lory, from being well known, and exhibiting the prominent characters of its tribe, is a correct type of the genus. Its length is about eleven inches. The general colour is rich scarlet, with the wings and thighs green: the bend of the shoulder, (and sometimes a spot on the back,) is yellow. Tail graduated, the lower half of the feathers deep blackish green, glossed with blue. Inhabits the Molucca Islands. Notwithstanding the attention recently bestowed in characterizing the groups of this family, the most important external peculiarity of _Lorius_ and _Trichoglossus_ has been overlooked. In these birds, that part of the roof of the under mandible which projects beyond the lower, is generally thin, and always perfectly smooth: a weakness of structure which renders it impossible for these parrots to feed upon hard substances; and betrays their frugivorous and suctorial nature, by indications perceptible to every one. * * * * * * [Illustration: LEVAILLANTS CUCKOW. _Coccyzus Levaillanti_] COCCYZUS Levaillantii. _Black and White-throated Cuckow._ ---- Family Cuculidæ. GENERIC CHARACTER.--Lesson. Man. 2. 120. ---- SPECIFIC CHARACTER. _Head crested, the feathers pointed; plumage above black glossed with green; band at the base of the quills, end of the tail, and under parts of the body, white; throat striped with black._ Variete du Coucou Edolio, _Le Vail. Ois. d'Af. 4. pl. 209._ ---- Unlike the true Cuckows, the birds of this genus rear and provide for their young in the ordinary manner. The species are numerous in the tropical latitudes of both hemispheres. Two are found in North America, which, in their external characters, approach so near to the genuine Cuckows, that they barely come within the definition of the present group. It frequently happens that species, originally well described, become involved in obscurity by compilers. Le Vaillant, who first described this bird, supposed it a variety of his _Coucou Edolio_: but in this he was mistaken; the one being a _Cuculus_; the other a _Coccyzus_. We should have thought our species might be the _Cuculus Afer._ of Drs. Leach and Latham, had not the former stated his bird to be a _variety_ of Le Vaillant's, and figured it as an example of the genus _Cuculus_. Dr. Latham (Gen. Hist. 3, 290) copies this description of _C. Afer_. (Zool. Mis. 1. p. 31), adds some further characters not seen in our bird, and, under the same name, describes what is evidently another species. Lastly, M. Vieillot, in his account of the genus _Coccyzus_ (Orn. Ency. Meth. p. 1342), relying on the usual accuracy of Le Vaillant--and never, perhaps, having seen the bird--omits it altogether. To prevent this confusion extending further, and to detach the species from those dubious descriptions with which it has been mixed, we have thought it best to record it by the name of its first describer.