338 GLOSSY IBIS. 



We have already remarked that Buffon justly indicated the natural 

 relations of the Ibis by stating that it was intermediate between the 

 Stork and the Curlew. What he said of the species we shall extend to 

 the three families to which the three birds belong in our system. In 

 the transition from one group to another Nature seems often to make 

 the passage by insensible intermediate steps, and it sometimes happens 

 that the species placed on the limits of two groups belong decidedly to 

 one or the other, and even when it may be impossible to say to which 

 they ought to be referred, we still cannot admit them as types of an 

 intermediate group. At other times the intermediate species form a 

 small group by themselves, and although a portion of such a connecting 

 group shows great afiinity to that which follows it, while another portion 

 is equally connected with a preceding group, yet the two parts are still 

 more related between themselves. So it is with the family of Tanta- 

 lidae or Falcati^ formed from the genus Ta?italus of Linn^, and com- 

 posed of but two very natural genera, Tantalus and Ibis, the former 

 of which retains a resemblance to the Ardeidce or Cultrirostres, while 

 the latter claims a stronger affinity with the ScolopaciB.ce or Limicolce. 

 Nothing, in our opinion, shows more the propriety and even necessity 

 of distinguishing this small intermediate group from those which touch 

 upon it. 



Builbn and Brisson, who used as a character the artificial one of the 

 curved bill, did not separate the Tantalidce from the Curlews, which are 

 real Scolopacidce, though somewhat allied to Ibis. Linn^, whose 

 philosophical tact was seldom at fault, and who crowded all the Scolo- 

 pacidce into his arbitrary genera Tringa and Scolopax, did not however 

 confound the two families, for he employed as a distinguishing mark of 

 his genus Tantalus the important character of the naked face. He 

 was followed by Latham and others. The Ibis of Lac^p^de is equiva- 

 lant to the Tantalus of Linn^, though by giving the genus this name 

 (which Latham had done in English), he obtained the credit of being 

 the founder of the genus Ibis, but unjustly, as he included in it all the 

 smooth and thick-billed Tantali. To Illiger belongs the merit of hav- 

 ing first made the distinction between them, and Cuvier, Vieillot, Tem- 

 minck, and most others have followed his course, though some German 

 authors call the restricted genus Falcinellus. The present family was 

 instituted by Illiger under the name of Falcati. Vieillot and Ranzani 

 adopted it under the name of Falcirostres. Boie called it " of the 

 Ibides," but Cuvier and Latreille placed the two genera of which it is 

 composed within the respective limits of the two families which they con- 

 nect, and which they called Cultrirostres and Longirostres. Although 

 Mr. Vigors and the modern English school have not adopted it (proba- 

 bly because it interfered with their whimsical quinary arrangement), 

 they do not dismember it, but force the whole into their family Ardeidce, 



