ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
THE GOATSUCKERS AND THEIR ALLIES
THE FROGMOUTHS
(Family Podargida)
Apparently quite closely allied to the Goatsuckers, and for which some of them might readily be mistaken, are the curious Frogmouths, so called from their enormously widened and flattened bills, which have been likened to the widely gaping mouth of a frog.
They have much the same shape and mottled plumage as the Goatsuckers, and like them are strictly nocturnal and insectivorous, but structurally they differ in a number of particulars, perhaps the most important being the desmognathous instead of the split (schizognathous) form of palate, and the absence of an oil-gland, and some of them are further characterized by the presence of a large powder-down patch on each side of the rump. Their nesting habits and eggs are also quite different from those of the Goatsuckers and Nightjars, as will be shown later.
They are all natives of the Old World, being mainly confined to the Malayan and Australian regions, and are comprised in three genera and about thirty-five species. They are often further divided into two subfamilies, in the first of which (the Podarginm) the nostrils are slit-like and protected by an overhanging flap and the whole concealed by plumes and feathers, while in the other (the Mgothelina) the nostrils are near the tip of the bill and are obvious and open.
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