298 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, S^c. 



of the Heron and Boatbill as there is in its composition, whilst 

 I should confess (on fuller showing) that I had underrated 

 its relationships to the hook-billed Umbre, and to that long- 

 faced carrion-, cat-, and toad-eating bird, the Adjutant. I know 

 nothing of the anatomy of the Scopus, save what I have 

 learned from this invaluable paper of Dr. Reinhardt's, and can 

 scarcely imagine how much of the Umbre I should have found 

 in the skeleton of the Balaniceps. Moreover, I do read some 

 tokens of the Adjutant and Marabou in the large composition 

 of this great boat-billed bird. 



Nevertheless a careful study of Professor Reinhardt's paper, 

 both as to the plumage and the osteology of the Balaniceps, only 

 satisfies me that I was right in seizing hold of my old captive 

 and favourite, the Grey Heron, and making him the central type 

 not only of the Ardeina proper, but also of the Ciconice, Leptoptili, 

 Mycterice, and Anastomi, as well as Cancroma, Scopus, and the big 

 link which connects these two aberrants — the Balceniceps. I shall 

 not, however, trouble you with many details at present, but I shall 

 wait until I can bring a better-furnished mind to bear upon the 

 subject. 



I have, however, to notice that, in my description of the ster- 

 num of the Balceniceps (Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iv. part 7. p. 338), I 

 unfortunately forgot to mention that the coracoids do not overlap 

 each other in the Balceniceps, as they do in the true Herons, in- 

 cluding the Boatbill. I believe that Professor Reinhardt lays stress 

 upon this, whilst I, although fully acquainted with the fact, put 

 it down simply to " teleology," this condition occurring abruptly 

 sometimes in a family, as in the Osprey {Pandion halia'etus), 

 and being nothing more than an allowable thing, at any time, if 

 the anterior margin of the sternum should happen to be too 

 narrow for the coracoids. I learn (from a letter of Dr. Reinhardt 

 to his excellent translator, Mr. A. Newton) that Scopus agrees 

 with Leptoptilus and other Ciconians in this matter. But it is a 

 character that will not hold ; for in the skeleton of Ciconia alba 

 in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (No. 1304) 

 the coracoids overlap, and I possess a drawing, made by me in 

 1847, showing that they do so. 



Another point of difference between the Balceniceps and the 



