IV IBIDIDAE 99 
Regions is metallic black with white abdomen and under tail- 
coverts, downy white head and neck with black crown, reddish 
bill and feet. D. maguari of South America has the head and 
neck feathered, naked red lores and sides of the throat, white 
plumage with black wings and tail, yellowish bill and red feet. 
Ciconia (Abdimia) abdimii of the Ethiopian Region is 
bronzy-black with white lower surface; the chin, membranous 
forehead, and tip of the bill being orange-red, the remainder 
of the bill greenish and the bare cheeks bluish. (. nigra, the 
Black Stork of British lists, is iridescent black, with white breast 
and belly, red bill, feet, and orbits; C. alba, the White Stork, a 
much more common visitor here, is white with black wings and 
orbits, red bill and feet. The former—reckoning for the irregular 
distribution characteristic of the Family—may be said to inhabit 
Europe, Palaearctic Asia, and North Africa, wintering southward 
to India and Cape Colony ; the latter is more abundant within a 
like area, and is represented in East Siberia, China, and Japan 
by C. boyciana with black bill and red orbits. 
The sexes in this group are similar; but when immature the 
whiter species are often more dusky, and the blacker species brown- 
ish, while the bill and legs may then be greenish instead of red, as 
in CL nigra, or the head and neck more feathered, as in Zantalus. 
The Fossils referred to this Family are Propelargus of the 
Upper Eocene of France, Pelargodes, Tantalus, and possibly 
Leptoptilus of its Miocene; Amphipelargus of the Plocene of 
Samos; Palaecociconia of the Plistocene of Brazil; Palacopelargus 
and Yenorhynchus of that of Queensland. 
Fam. IX. The Ibididae, connected with the Storks through 
Tantalus, may be divided into the Sub-families (1) Jbidinae or 
Ibises, and (2) Plataleinae or Spoonbills. In the former the long 
bill is weak, nearly cylindrical, and strongly curved; in the latter 
flattened, narrowed in the middle, and dilated into a terminal 
“spoon,” which finally turns downwards. The nasal grooves are 
remarkably elongated, the skull is somewhat square in Thaumatibis 
and Graptocephalus. The tibia is partly bare, the metatarsus of 
medium length and often stout, with transverse or hexagonal scales 
becoming almost reticulated behind, or even in front in /agedashia 
and Carphibis ; the toes are generally long, with short anterior webs 
and variable claws, that of the third digit being sometimes serrated. 
The moderate wings have eleven primaries and from fourteen to 
