THE WINDPIPE IN HERONS 



they are not put together, where is poor Scopus to go ? 

 It is neither one nor the other with sufficient definite- 

 ness to please the exigeant systematist who wants cut- 

 and-driedness. Mention has been made of the voice of 

 the umbre. The voice is not melodious ; but the chief 

 thing is that it is a voice. Now, the true storks are 

 voiceless, though they make a most efficient din by 

 clattering their bills. Yet this is no more a voice than 

 the chattering and gibbering of a ghost. To produce a 

 voice, a voice organ must exist ; and Scopus has one as 

 good as that of any screaming or even some singing 

 birds. Storks, on the other hand, only show in rare 

 cases, such as the African Abdimia, an approach to a 

 proper voice organ. As a rule, the windpipe divides 

 into its two bronchi without modifying itself to form 

 that assemblage of rods of cartilage movable by a pair 

 of muscles which constitutes the organ of song or speech 

 in birds. Then, again, Scopus does not possess that 

 curious muscle, so useful in perching, because it flexes 

 certain tendons of the foot, which is nearly universally 

 found in storks and more universally absent in herons 

 and bitterns. 



SAND GROUSE 



There are a good many species of sand grouse ; but 

 one, viz. Syrrhaptes arenarius, is the most interesting to 

 us, inasmuch as it is that bird which at times migrates 

 in countless hordes from its Asiatic home and invades 

 Europe even to the confines of the'.West. The name 

 sand grouse is derived in the first place from its pre- 

 dilection for sandy spots, and in the second from the 

 fact that it was originally confused with the grouse 

 mainly on account of the feathered feet. The colour 

 betrays the desert-loving ways of the bird ; it is dull 

 yellow, mottled and speckled with darker shades. The 

 general look of the bird is^dove-like, but the flight has 



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