CHAPTER XVIII 



THE BUSTARDS, THICKNEES, AND CRANES 

 ORDER ALECTORIDES 



THE group known as Alectorides, under which were included in Mr. Sclater's 

 classification the cranes, bustards, and certain other families, is one of those ill- 

 defined assemblages of birds which afford illimitable difference of opinion as to the 

 relations of their constituents. For instance, some ornithologists remove the bus- 

 tards from the group to place them with the rails, while others would associate 

 them with the Limicola. Others, again, would regard the rails (inclusive of the 

 bustards) and the cranes as the representatives of two main subdivisions of the Al- 

 cctorides. Moreover, but few accept the relationship of the thicknees to the bus- 

 tards; some writers placing them among the Limicola, while Mr. Seebohm would 

 include them in the Gabies. Admitting that the assemblage may be to some extent 

 an artificial one, we think that its retention, at least as a provisional measure, is 

 convenient more especially as not only can it be defined, but that, in its present 

 form, it aids in the definition of the two succeeding groups. 



All the Alectorides * agree with the game birds and rails in having slit (schi- 

 zognathous) palates, and their young covered with down, and active almost im- 

 mediately after birth, as well as in the absence of a projecting (ectepicondylar) 

 process on the outer side of the lower end of the humerus. They are further char- 

 acterized by the truncation of the hinder end of the lower jaw, and by this feature, 

 as well as by the absence of any perforation of the extremity of the breastbone by 

 the bases of the metacoracoids, they are distinguished from the game birds. From 

 the rails they may be distinguished by the circumstance that when their nostrils are 

 oval (holorhinal) either the number of toes is reduced to three, or if four toes are 



* Except the kagu. 



(2219) 



