ALECTORIDES: CRANES, RAILS, AND THEIR ALLIES. 665 



a mere platform of dead rushes. Eggs 3-5, elliptical, aliout l.*J2 X 1-22, white, vnih faintest 

 tinge of bluish. 



IX. Order ALECTORIDES: Cranes, Rails, and their Allies. 



A portion of these birds, representing the Crane type, have a general resemblance to the 

 foregoing, but are readily distinguished by the technical characters given beyond under the head 

 of Grnidte, and in essential respects accord with the rest, representing the Rail type. The latter 

 are birds of medium and small size, with compressed body, and the head feathered. The neck 

 and legs are not particularly lengthened, but as a rule the toes are remarkably long, enabling 

 the birds to run lightly over the soft oozy ground and floating vegetation of the reedy swamps 

 and marshes they Juhabit. This length of the toes has given a name, Macrodactyli, to the 

 group ; their shy retiring habit of skulkinjf among the rushes has caused them to be sometimes 

 called Latitores (skulkers). Their nature is praecocial ; the eggs are numerous, usually laid 

 on the ground, in a rude nest. The nourishment is essentially the same as that of the Limicolce, 

 but it is simply picked up fi-om the surfiice, not felt for in the mud, nor stamped out of the 

 gi-ound. The hallux is usually lengthened, and but little elevated, but may be short and well 

 up, or even absent. The feet are conspicuously lobate in some forms, but never extensively 

 palmate ; the phalanges of the front toes diminish in length fi-om first to penultimate. The 

 lower part of the crus is bare of feathers. The wings are usually short, rounded, and concave ; 

 the tail is very short, few-feathered, often held cocked up, and wagged in time with a bobbing 

 motion of the head that occurs with each step taken. 



T!\ie Alectorides are schizognathous in palatal structure. The nasal bones are schizorhinal 

 in the Crane tyjie, holorhinal in that of the Rails. The angle of the mandible is truncate. The 

 maxiUo-palatiues are not spongy, but thin and laminate. There are normally no basipterygfiid 

 processes. The sternum is typically long and naiTow, and may be entire, or deeply notched ; 

 it is sometimes excavated to receive folds of the windpipe. There are two carotids ; and two 

 intestinal cceca are present. While the general pterylosis is not peculiar, the Alectorides nor- 

 mally lack the powder-down tracts so characteristic of Herons and their allies. As to the 

 classificatory muscles of the thigh, aU five are present nearly throughout the order ; exception- 

 ally the femoro-caudal or its accessory is wanting. 



These normally prsecocial and ptiloptedic (with whatever exceptions) birds are more sharply 

 distinguished from the perfectly altricial Herodiones than they are from the completely pr^ecocial 

 and ptilopsedic I/imicolce ; with which latter, in fact, the Alectorides are directly connected 

 through the Bustards (Otidida) and the Thick-knees [CEdicnemidce) — the line between the 

 two orders being probably to be drawn between these two families. 



This country affords typical representatives of the two leading forais of the order, that of 

 the Cranes, to which ^ramMS belongs, and of the Kails, Coots, and GaUinules, as given beyond. 

 There are, however, a number of remarkable outliers that may be briefly mentioned, as fol- 

 lows : The large and important Old World family of the Bustards, Otididce, has already been 

 /nentioned as the connecting link between Alectorides and Limicolte. The Kagu, Rlwwchoetus 

 juhatus of New Caledonia, and the Carle, Eurypyga helias of Guiana, each the type and single 

 representative of a family, are near the Cranes in principal osteological characters, although 

 pterylographically they are more like Herons, both possessing powder-down tracts ; and Eury- 

 pyga, in particular, resembles Herons in other respects. More closely allied to the Cranes are 

 the Trumpeters, Psophiida, of one genus and few species of South America; with the Cariamas, 

 Cariamidce, of the same country, represented only by the Cariama cristata and the Chunga 

 burmeisteri. The Homed Screamers, Palamedeidce, of South America, consisting of three 

 species, Palamedea cornuta, Chauna chavaria, and C. derhiana, seem to be nearer the Rails, and 

 also to closely approach some water birds ; one of them is by some considered the nearest living 



