WADING BIRDS. 



545 



Fig. 468. Long-billed Curlew. From 

 Coues' Key. 



Allied to the gallinules is the " giant " or Gallinula (Le- 

 guatia) gigantea of Schlegel (Fig. 467), which formerly lived 

 in the Mascarene Islands, having been observed as late as 

 J 694. It stood two metres (over six feet) high. With it was 



associated a large blue galli- 

 nule Porphyrio (Notornix '?} 

 coerulescens Selys which was 

 last seen on the Isle Bourbon 

 between 1669 and 1672. It 

 was incapable of flight, but 

 ran with exceeding swiftness. 

 The cranes are of great 

 stature, the legs and neck very 

 long, with the head sometimes- 

 curiously tufted. With the 

 true herons are associated the night herons and the bitterns- 

 of the United States, the boat-billed heron of Central Am- 

 erica, and the odd Balceniceps rex of Africa, which has an 

 enormous head and broad, large bill. The herons are suc- 

 ceeded by the singular spoon-bills represented by the rose- 

 ate spoon-bill, and which, with 

 the wood Ibis and other species 

 of this group, adorn the swamps 

 and bayous of the South Atlan- 

 tic and Gulf States. 



The shore-birds, or the cur- 

 lews (Numenius longirostris, 

 Fig. 468), plover, sandpipes, 

 peeps, snipes (Gallinago Wil- 

 sonii, Fig. 469), woodcock, and 

 stilt (Himantopus nigricollis, 

 Fig. 470), are long-legged, long- 

 billed birds, going in flocks by 

 the seashore or river-banks, 



sometimes living inland on low 



Fig. 469. American Snipe. From 

 Tenuey's Zoology. 



plains ; they are not, generally speaking, nest-builders, the 

 eggs being laid in rude nests or hollows in the ground. 

 They feed on worms, insects, and snails, either picking 

 them up from the surface or boring for them in the mud or 



