STORK 



-57 



on the feathers of the back and wins^s 

 bars characteristic of its cousin. 

 Young birds are of a ruddier tint, 

 with coarser mottlings. The nest- 

 Hng and eggs it is superfluous to 

 describe. 



Thirty -one instances of the 

 occurrence of the American bittern 

 in the British Islands were recorded 

 during the nineteenth century, two 

 of which are, however, doubtful, 

 thus reducing the number to 

 twenty-nine. Of these, twelve are 

 Irish, and six Scottish (including 

 I slay, in the Hebrides), the rest 

 being from England, Wales, and 

 the Isle of Man (one). A speci- 

 men has also been taken in 

 Guernsey. In 1903 one was 

 caught in the Scilly Islands, while 

 another was killed in Cornwall in 

 1906. 



in place of the heavy V-shaped 



AMKRICA.N BITTEK.N. 



Stork (Cieonia ^^^ stork, which was apparently never a breeding 

 alba) British bird, although it has been from time im- 



memorial an irregular visitor in spring and autumn 

 to our islands, more especially the eastern counties, is the typical 

 representative of a second group of the Herodiones, differing from 

 the herons and bitterns in the following features : — Among external 

 characteristics, the featherless tract of the back stops short of the 

 neck, there are no " powder-down " patches, and the middle claw is not 

 serrated. In the neck the number of vertebrae is only seventeen 

 instead of from eighteen to twenty ; while there are no muscles attached 

 to the lower part of the windpipe, and in consequence of this latter 

 feature storks are entirely destitute of any cry, the utmost they can 

 do in the way of making a noise being to snap the two halves of their 

 beaks together, or, in some instances perhaps, to emit a kind of grunt. 

 In this respect these birds are markedly different from herons and 

 bitterns, and still more so from cranes. 



All the members of the group may be included in the single 

 family Ciconiidae, which is characterised by the absence of any distinct 



