A DJUTANT—A E TOMORPH^ 



bird) and Menura (Lyre-BIRd), the otlier (normales) containing 

 all the rest of the Oscines. 



ADJUTANT, a large kind of Stork, so called by the English 

 in India and elsewhere "from its comical resemblance to a human 

 figure in a stiff dress pacing slowly on a parade-ground " (Yule & 

 Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, sub voce). It belongs to the genus Leptoptilus, 

 of which the members are distinguished by their sad-coloured 

 plumage, their black, scabrous head, and their enormous tawny 

 pouch, which depends, occasionally some 16 inches or more in 

 length, from the lower part of the neck, and is not connected as 

 commonly believed with the digestive system (see AlR-SACKS). In 

 many parts of India L. dubius, or L. argala of some authors, the 

 largest of these birds, the Harglla as Hindus call it, is a most 

 efficient scavenger, sailing aloft at a vast height and descending on 

 the discovery of ofFal, though frogs and fishes also form part of its 

 diet. It familiarly enters the large towns, in many of which on 

 account of its services it is strictly protected from injury, and, 

 having satisfied its appetite, seeks the repose it has earned, sitting 

 with its feet extended in front in a most grotesque attitude. A 

 second and smaller species, L. javanicus, has a more southern and 

 eastern range ; while a third, L. crwnenifer, of African origin, and 

 often known as the Marabou-Stork, gives its name to the beautifully 

 soft feathers so called, though our markets are mostly supplied with 

 them by the Indian species (in which they form the lower tail- 

 coverts), if not, as some suppose, by Vultures. Related to the 

 Adjutants are the birds known as Jabirus. 



^GITHOGNATH^, the fourth and last Suborder of Car- 

 INAT^, according to Prof. Huxley's arrangement (Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1867, pp. 450-456, 467-472), founded chiefly on palatal characters, 

 containing two groups, the CYPSELOMORPHiE and CoRACOMORPHiE, 

 and possibly a third, the Celeohorph^ (or Gecinommyhse). In 

 the true segithognathous structure the vomer is broad, abruptly 

 truncated in front and deeply cleft behind, so as to embrace the 

 rostrum of the sphenoid ; the palatals have produced postero- 

 external angles, the maxillo- palatals are slender at their origin, 

 and extend obliquely inwards and backwards over the palatals, ending 

 beneath the vomer in expanded extremities, not united either 

 with one another or ^vith the vomer, nor is the last united with the 

 ossification of the anterior part of the nasal septum — a not vm- 

 common condition. As a whole the ^glthognathx correspond 

 pretty well with the Insessores of Vigors. 



AETOMORPH^, Prof. Huxley's name {Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, 

 pp. 462-465) for that group of his Suborder Desmognath^, which 

 includes the Birds -of -Prey, commonly so called, and therefore 

 practically equivalent to the Accipitres of Linnaeus and the Rap- 



