Ardeino- Anserine Assemblage of Birds. 97 



4. They have no basipterygoid processes*. 



5. They have two lateral occipital foutanelles. 



6. The angle of the mandible is much produced and 

 recurved. 



7. The laminse of the palatines are wide and widely sepa- 

 rated^ very closely resembling those of the Palamedese. 



8. The maxillo-palatines are fused with each other along 

 their whole length, and are rather more spongy than in the 

 Anseres^ but not nearly so much so as in the Herodiones. 



Within the order the combination of the 2nd, 4th, and 

 6th characters is diagnostic. 



It is supposed that the newly hatched young of the Phoe- 

 nicopteri differ from those of all the Gallino-Gralline order 

 of birds (the Columbse alone excepted), and also from those 

 of the Palamedeaj and Auseres, in being so helpless that 

 they have to be fed for some time in the nest by their parents ; 

 but the truth of this supposition has never been conclusively 

 proved. 



The Phoenicopteri scarcely number a dozen species, which 

 are distributed in tropical America and in the tropics of the 

 Old World west of Calcutta. 



The Flamingoes are neither Storks nor Herons. They 

 agree with the former in the 1st, 2nd, and 5th, and with the 

 latter in the 3rd, 4th, Gth, 7th, and 8th characters, hereafter 

 given as distinguishing these two families. They are un- 

 questionably very near allies of the Herodiones, but their 

 osteological characters suggest their still closer relationship 

 to the Anseres. 



Platale.e. 



The Spoonbills and Ibises are so closely related that they 

 must be associated together in one suborder, which presents 

 the following characters : — 



1 . They are heterocoelous in the articulation of their dorsal 

 vertebrae. 



* These are often represented by rudimentary prickles, which do not 

 approach the pterygoids, and are situated at some distance from the 

 palatines. 



SEll. VI. VOL. I. H 



