PLEGADIS. 157 



Order ARDEIFORMES. 



HERONS, STORKS, IBISES, AND SPOONBILLS. 



Body usually compressed; neck and legs very long; plumage full and 

 soft; bill long, normally straight, wedge-shaped, and pointed, but in 

 Ibididcs blunt and decurved, in Plataleidce broadly spatulate ; nostrils near 

 base of bill, elongate; hind toe insistent or but slightly elevated. Nest 

 made of sticks and twigs usually placed in a tree or bush; eggs three to 

 five, blue and unspotted ; young helpless at birth. 



Suborders. 



a 1 . Sides of upper mandible with a deep, narrow groove extending from nostrils 



to tip Platalese (p. 157) 



a*. Sides of upper mandible without any groove. 



ft 1 . Claws broad and flat, that of middle toe not pectinate Ciconiae (p. 159) 



6 2 . Claws narrow and arched, that of middle toe with its inner edge distinctly 

 pectinate Ardeae (p. 161) 



Suborder PLATALE^E. 

 Families. 



a 1 . Bill slender, nearly cylindrical, decidedly decurved for nearly its whole length. 



Ibididae (p. 157) 

 a 2 . Bill very broad, flattened, greatly widened toward the tip.. Plataleidae (p. 158) 



Family IBIDnXffi. 



Bill long, compressed, and curved downward, its tip blunt and 

 rounded ; on each side of culmen a longitudinal groove in the basal portion 

 of which the nostril is pierced. 



Genus PLEGADIS Kaup, 1829. 



Characters same as those given for the Family. 



131. PLEGADIS AUTUMNALIS (Linnaeus). 

 GLOSSY IBIS. 



Tringa autumnalis LINNAEUS in Hasselquist, Reise Palaestina (1762), 306. 

 Plegadis falcinellus GATES, Bds. Brit. Burmah (1883), 2, 271; SHARPE, 



Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26, 29; Hand-List (1899), 1, 187; 



GATES, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902), 2, 102; MEARNS, Proc. Biol. Soc. 



Wash. (1905), 18, 89; MCGREGOR and WORCESTER, Hand-List (1906), 



31. 



Mindanao (Mearns). China, Africa, Jamaica, Australia, eastern United States, 

 southern Europe to India. 



