366 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : ZOOLOGY. 



grass tussocks in swamps, but oftener in low bushes, the structures being 

 much Hke the nest of the smaller herons, platforms of sticks and twigs. 

 At all seasons the birds are gregarious and it was no uncommon sight in 

 Florida as late as 1875 to see companies of five hundred of these truly 

 magnificent birds associated together on some favorite feeding ground, or 

 going to spend the night in a mangrove rookery. They were tame and 

 unsuspicious and fell a ready prey to the plume hunters, who have prac- 

 tically exterminated them from the region in question. 



Suborder Ciconi^. 

 Sharpe, Classif Bds. 75 (1891); id. Hand-List Bds. I. p. 189(1899). 



Family Ciconiid^. 



Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. XXVI. p. 291 (1898) ; id. Hand-List Bds. 

 I. p. 188 (1899). 



Subfamily TANTAUNy^. 



Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. XXVI. p. 321 (1898) ; id. Hand-List I. p. 

 189 (1899). 



Genus TANTALUS Linnseus. 



Type. 



Tantahis, Linn. Syst. Nat. I. p. 240 (1766); Sharpe, Cat. 

 Bds. Brit. Mus. XXVI. p. 321 (1898); id. Hand-List 

 Bds. I. p. 189 (1899) T. lociilator. 



Tan fa/ides, Reichenb. Av. Syst. Nat. p. xiv (1852-53) . T. lociilator. 



Tantalops, Coues, Key to N. Amer. Bds. 2d ed. p. 653 



(1884) T. loc7tlator. 



Geographical Range. — North and South America. 



Tantalus loculator Linnaeus. 



Tantalus loculator Wood, Pelecan, Catesby, Nat. Hist. Carol. I. p. 81, pi. 



81 (1730); Linn. Syst. Nat. I. p. 140 (1758); Hartl. Ind. Azara, p. 



22 (1847); Burm. La Plata Reis. II. p. 510 (1861 : Rio Parana); 



Barrows, Auk, I. p. 272 (1884: Entrerios) ; Scl. & Huds. Argent. 



