32 CICONITD^ ABDIMIA 



b. Tarsus with transverse scutes in front ; 

 head and neck feathered, only the lores 



bare Plegadis, p. 102. 



C. Bill flattened, narrow in the middle and 



spatulate at the tip Platalea, p. 104. 



Family I. OICONIIDJB. 



The Storks are all large birds with stout, long, straight bills, 

 not hooked at the tip (except Pseudo tantalus )> and without distinct 

 grooves on either side ; the nostrils are pervious ; the tibiae half bare ; 

 the front toes are webbed at the base, the outer one specially so, 

 and the claw of the middle toe is* not pectinated ; the eggs are white 

 and the young are hatched naked and dependent on their parents 

 for some time. Anatomical characters are : skull holorhinal ; 

 angle of the mandible not produced and recurved behind the articu- 

 lation with the quadrate ; cervical vertebrae seventeen in number ; 

 two separate carotids ; two small caeca ; no intrinsic muscles to 

 the syrinx (so no voice) ; no powder-down patches ; femorocaudal, 

 semitendinosus, accessory semitendinosus and ambiens generally 

 present ; femorocaudal and ambiens absent in some genera. 



Genus I. ABDIMIA. 



Type 

 Abdimia, Bp. Comptes Bend, xl, p. 721 (1855) A. abdimii. 



Bill straight, with a horny plate at the base ; sides of the face 

 and upper throat bare ; tail slightly forked, the two central rectrices 

 being rather shorter than the others ; under tail-coverts elongated 

 and stiffened so as to appear like the true rectrices and of about 

 the same length. 



Only one species, confined to the Ethiopian Region, is included 

 in this genus. 



-S^Ae^2^>V^' 



576. Abdimia abdimii. White-bellied Stork. 





Ciconia abdimii, Licht., Verz. Doubl. p. 76 (1823) ; Cretzschm. in Eilpp. 

 Atlas, p. 11, pi. 8 (1826) ; Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 315 (1867) ; Shelley, 

 Ibis, 1882, p. 364 ; Sharpe, ed. Layard's B. S. Afr. p. 730 (1884) ; 

 Ayres, Ibis, 1886, p. 297; Shelley, B. Afr. i, p. 159 (1896) ; 

 Marshall, Ibis, 1900, p. 267. 



