240 GRALLATORES, WADING BIRDS. 
and able to run about. The food is insects, worms, and other small or soft animals, 
either picked up from the surface, or probed for in soft sand or mud, or forced to 
rise by stamping with the feet on the ground; from this latter circumstance, the 
birds have been named Calcatores (stampers). With a few exceptions, the wing is 
long, thin, flat and pointed, with narrow stiff primaries, rapidly graduated from 1st 
to 10th; secondaries in turn rapidly lengthening from without inward, the posterior 
border of the wing thus showing two salient points separated by a deep emargina- 
tion. The tail, never long, is commonly quite short, and has from 12 (the usual 
number) up to 20 or even 26 feathers (in a remarkable group of snipe). The legs 
are commonly lengthened, sometimes extremely so, rarely quite short, and are 
usually slender; they are indifferently scutellate or reticulate, or both. The 
feathers rarely reach the suffrago. The toes are short (as compared with the case 
of herons and rails, of the next group), the anterior usually semipalmate, fre- 
quently cleft to the base, rarely palmate or lobate; the hinder is always short and 
elevated, or absent. The bill varies much in length and contour, but is almost 
always slender, contracted from the frontal region of the skull, and as long as, or 
much longer than, the head, representing the ‘‘ pressirostral” and “ longirostral” 
types of Cuvier. Furthermore, it is generally in large part, if not entirely, covered 
with softish skin, often membranous and sensitive to the very tip, and only rarely 
hard throughout. The nostril is generally a slit in the membranous part, and 
probably never feathered. 
Most of the families of this division are well represented in this country, and 
will be found fully characterized beyond. The extra-limital ones are: — Otidide, 
bustards, an important group of Europe, Asia and Africa, containing some 20 
species; it has a certain gallinaceous bent, and stands, like the Turnicide, near the 
boundary line of the two orders. The remarkable genus Chionis, of two South 
American species, forms the family Chionidce (or sheath-bills, so called because the 
bill is invested by a horny sheath forming a false cere), with some gallinaceous rela- 
tionships, and appears to belong here, near the oyster-catchers. The Thinocoride, 
or ‘ lark-partridges,” as they are called, consisting of the South American genera 
Thinocorus and Attagis, of few species, appear to be plover-like birds, near the 
elareoline group of the latter. The singular African Dromas ardeola, representing 
a family Dromadidce, of uncertain position, is sometimes placed near the avocets, 
sometimes with the herons, and is occasionally removed to another order. 
II. HERODIONES. Herons and their allies. The species average of large 
size, some of them standing amongst the tallest of birds (excepting ostriches). 
The body is usually compressed ; the legs, neck and bill are commonly extremely 
long. The general pterylosis is peculiar, in the presence, nearly throughout the 
croup, of the remarkable powder down tracts, and in some other respects. A part, 
if not the whole of the head, is naked, as much of the neck also frequently is. 
The toes are long and slender; the hallux is long, and either not obviously elevated, 
or else perfectly insistent. A foot of insessorial character results, and the species 
frequently perch on trees, where the nest is usually placed. The physiological nature 
is altricial; the young hatch naked, unable to stand, and are fed in the nest. The 
food is fish, reptiles, mollusks and other animal matters, generally procured by 
spearing with a quick thrust of the sharp bill, given as the birds stand in wait, or 
stalk stealthily along; hence they are sometimes called Gradatores (stalkers). The 
bill represents the cultrirostral pattern; it isas arule of lengthened, wedged shape, 
hard and acute at the end, if not hard throughout, with sharp cutting edges, and it 
gee 8. EN oe 
