158 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



sent came from those authors who expected to add to the naturalness and homoge- 

 neity by including the flamingos, though Professor Parker, it must be admitted, all the 

 time tried to show that the distance of the Pelargomorpha? from some of the schizo- 

 gnathous waders was not so great as most authors were ready to concede since Hux- 

 ley's scheme of classification had commenced to overthrow the old notions. As to 

 the mutual relationship of the forms included, the views were a little divided, some 

 authors holding that the ibises and storks were more closely allied than the storks and 

 herons, others defending the opposite opinion. The latter are now generally conceded 

 to be right, but so far have some modern anatomical systematists gone as to assert that 

 the ibises are so different from the storks and herons, and so much like the schizo- 

 gnathous waders, that they are better classified with the latter than with the former, 

 Forbes being foremost among the authors recommending this course. Forcible argu- 

 ments are produced on both sides, but a final decision is extremely difficult, since it 

 seems to depend upon the question whether the desmognathism is so important a 

 character that it counterbalances the many characters in which herons and storks dis- 

 agree with the ibises, and which the latter have in common with the Gralke. For 

 obvious reasons Ave shall not try to solve the question here, but will retain the ibises 

 in this order, though regarding them as a group of equal taxonomic value to the 

 storks and herons combined. 



We therefore propose to treat them as a super-family under the name of IBIDOI- 

 DE^E, and shall at once proceed to point out the chief characters by which they differ 

 from the Ardeoideffi. The former, which embrace ibises and spoonbills, are schizo- 

 rhinal ; the posterior angle of their mandible is recurved ; occipital foramina are pres- 

 ent ; the edge of the cranium above the orbits is truncate, indicating the position of 

 the nasal glands; the breast-bone is four-notched behind, like that of the curlews; 

 the accessory femoro-caudal is present. They also differ from the storks and herons 

 in the form of the furculum and its relation to the breast-bone, the number of ribs, 

 and several other characters of more or less importance. Externally the two super- 

 families are easily distinguished by the bill, the Ibidoideffi having it weak and fur- 

 rowed by a long groove for nearly its whole length. 



As indicated above, the present super-family embraces the ibises and the spoon- 

 bills, but while the members of these two groups look extremely dissimilar on account 

 of the apparently enormous difference in the shape of their bills, they are otherwise 

 so closely allied as to be hardly allowed more than sub-family rank; hence we recog- 

 nize only one family, the IBIDID^E. The bill of the ibises is more or less cylindrical, 

 and evenly arched from the base, much after the fashion of a curlew's bill. The 

 spoonbills have the beak greatly flattened and broadened, anteriorly widened into a 

 spoon-like or spade-like expansion. The Ibididas inhabit the warmer portions of the 

 globe, but are not very numerous, some thirty living species being known. Several 

 fossil forms have been described, however; for instance, Ibis pai/ana and Ibidopodia 

 palustris, from the miocene deposits of France, which are said to show even greater 

 affinities to the curlews than the recent species. 



First in the line comes, of course, Ibis ajthiopica, the sacred ibis of the ancient 

 Egyptians (and of the British Ornithologists' Union). In explanation of the accom- 

 panying cut, it may be stated that the head and neck are entirely naked, and the skin 

 black ; the feathers of the body are white ; the lengthened and disconnected barbs of 

 the tertiaries are beautifully blackish purple. 



According to the Rev. E. C. Taylor, the buff -backed heron " does duty on the 



