220 LONG BILLS. 



siderable length, and generally less firm in their 

 texture than most of the bills that have been 

 noticed. But though they have no general form, 

 they have a sort of general character. The birds 

 which possess them are all feeders upon animal sub- 

 stances, which they seek upon the ground, generally 

 in humid places, and some of them in the water ; or 

 if any of them eat vegetable matter, it is only that 

 which is comparatively succulent, such as the bulbous 

 roots of aquatic plants, or seeds which have been 

 macerated in the water till they become soft. Many 

 of them are flexible, consisting of a cellular bony 

 substance, containing blood-vessels, and covered by 

 a sentient membrane. They are a sort of interme- 

 diate between the bills of the land birds and those of 

 ducks, and, as distinguished from the dabbling bills of 

 the last of these, they may be called groping bills. 



Some of them inhabit warm countries, and follow 

 the lines of those rivers which are subject to periodical 

 overflowing, picking up as their food the water reptiles, 

 and other small animals, which are either driven from 

 their retreats in the banks as the water rises, or left 

 stranded when it subsides. The most remarkable of 

 these are the genus Ibis, which have the bill very 

 long, and bent from the base. In them it is harder 

 than in most of the group, and not covered by a 

 sentient membrane, but the mandibles are weak and 

 flattened, so that, in arranging the birds according to 

 their bills, these cannot be included among the cul- 

 trirostres, though, in their general habits, and also in 

 the places which they most frequent, they resemble 

 these more than they do the average of the present 

 group. The more formidable prey, which they cannot 

 so easily master with the bill, they dash forcibly 

 against the ground, or stamp it to death with the foot. 



