2078 HERONS, STORKS, AND IBISES 



hills the adjutant, according to Mr. C. T. Bingham, nests in vast numbers during 

 November and December, and in January the parents may be seen feeding the young 

 birds on the topmost pinnacles of their almost inaccessible rocks. The nest is a 

 large mass of sticks and twigs,, devoid of lining, and scarcely any depression in the 

 centre; the number of eggs varying from two to four, and these being large chalky- 

 white ovals. Occasionally, it is stated, the nests are placed in trees, and the young 

 birds are thickly covered with fluffy white down. 



The shell storks or shell ibises as they are often called, of which 

 there is one African {Anastomus lamelligerus) and one Indian species 

 (A. ostitans), are much smaller birds than any of the preceding, from all of which 

 they are at once distinguished by the two mandibles of the compressed and serrated 

 beak being in the adult in contact at their two extremities, but gaping widely 

 in the middle. On account of the second and third quills being the longest, the 

 large wings are pointed, and the tail is short. Although the Indian species has 

 a normal plumage, that of the African kind is remarkable in that the shafts of 

 all the feathers of the throat, under parts, and thighs are prolonged into small 

 horny processes at their extremities. In color the whole plumage is blackish 

 with green and purple reflections; the iris is red, the beak yellowish, and the 

 leg and foot black. Young birds lack the horny plates at the tips of the 

 feathers. In length the African species measures about twenty-six inches. The 

 latter species is widely distributed over Central and South Africa, and is also met 

 with at Mozambique. L,ike its Indian congener, it feeds almost exclusively on 

 mollusks, especially Ampullarice , and according to Livingstone breeds among reeds, 

 although it has also been stated to nest in trees. In the Barotse country the breed- 

 ing places are occupied year after year by vast numbers of these birds, and the 

 natives are accustomed to make a regular harvest of the young. With regard to 

 the peculiar gaping of the beak, Professor Ball writes that "this was at one time 

 supposed to be due to attrition of the edges, caused by the nature of the food upon 

 which the bird is generally believed to subsist. Jerdon, however, stated that the 

 bill of a young bird which he examined exhibited the same gaping. This I did not 

 find to be the case with any of the large members which I saw. The bills were 

 very much smaller than in the adult birds, were conical in shape, and the edges 

 were in distinct apposition, or slightly overlapping, throughout. The change does 

 not appear to me to be due to any loss of material of the bill by attrition, but to a 

 structural bowing or arching of the mandibles." 



Although agreeing with the other members of the present family in 

 AAf OOQ Storks 



the general form of the beak, the wood storks, or wood ibises, form a 



kind of connecting link between the typical storks and the ibises, and are frequently 

 referred to a separate family. In these birds the neck is of medium length; the 

 head large; the beak thick, long, rounded, tapering, and curving downward at the 

 tip; the foot long toed, with large webs; the wing long and broad, with the second 

 quill the longest, and the tail short and truncated. Unlike the storks, the plumage 

 of the adult differs considerably from that of the young. Although the skull agrees 

 in essential characteristics with that of the true storks, the furcula is V-shaped. 

 The American wood stork ( Tantalus loculator) is the sole representative of its genus, 



