260 GRUIFORMES ; CHAP. 
stalk about in stately fashion, stoop when running, and fly a little 
when hard pressed. The barking or screaming ery is chiefly heard 
towards dusk; the food consists of small mammals, snakes, lizards, 
snails, worms, insects and their larvae, as well as berries, Chunga 
preferring the insect diet. Easily domesticated, and in Brazil 
protected by custom, these birds will guard their owners’ fowls ; 
while the male at times incubates and shews off to the females in 
spring, hke a Bustard. Cariama builds a nest of twigs in low trees or 
bushes; Chunga generally chooses the ground; but in either case the 
young soon leave their quarters; the two eggs have a pale ground- 
colour with rufous blotches, as in so many Rails. The Seriema 
has been hatched in the Zoological Society’s Gardens in London. 
The fossil Phororhachos and certain others of the so-called 
Stereornithes (p. 44) probably belong here. 
Fam. VI. Otididae.—The Bustards are here admitted as a 
Family of the Gruiformes, though many writers have preferred 
to refer them to the Limicolae, and the question is by no means 
finally settled. The head is flat, the neck thick, the bill some- 
what blunt and depressed, being either short, as in Ofis and 
Trachelotis, or longer, as in Neotis and Lissotis. The meta- 
tarsus varies much, the length for mstance being comparatively 
great in Houbaropsis, and small in Otis tetrax, while both 
surfaces are covered with reticulated scales; the short, stout 
toes have flattish nails, and, the hallux is absent, as in many 
Limicoline forms. The wings are moderate, with the 
secondaries almost equal to the primaries, the latter—which 
are acuminate in Sypheotis—being eleven in number, and 
the former about twenty; the tail, of medium length, has a 
more or less rounded outline, and possesses from fourteen to 
twenty rectrices. Ornamental plumes are characteristic of this 
group, aud take the form of decided crests on the crown and 
nape, or on the latter alone, in all the genera except Otis, Veotis, 
Lissotis, Trachelotis, and Sypheotis; the last-named, however, 
has elongated cheek-feathers with bare shafts and spatulate 
webs. The plumes of the throat and fore-neck are lengthened 
and shield the breast in Houwbaropsis and Eupodotis, those of the 
sides of the neck form a ruff in Houbara ; while Otis is remark- 
able for the prolonged ear-coverts, and for the tuft of long bristly 
feathers on each side of the base of the mandible in the male. 
The nostrils are pervious, the tongue is sagittate, the furcula 
