STERNA OF THE CRANES. 387 



the coracoids, and the scapulars ; and on this account 

 the agami may perhaps be regarded as the feeblest 

 winged of birds which have the clavicles united and 

 can use the wings in flight. The great elongation 

 backwards of the sternum makes a very marked dif- 

 ference between this bird and the ostriches, in which 

 this bone, instead of being long, narrow, and but little 

 curved, as it is in this case, is short, broad, and very 

 convex on the under or external surface. The 

 habit of the bird corresponds ; for while the ostrich 

 family, in whatever part of the world they reside, are 

 found on dry if not parched and naked pastures, the 

 agami is found native in richer places, near the 

 perennial waters, but on the verge of the tall aquatic 

 herbage rather than in the middle of it. The agami 

 is thus intermediate in its locality between the ostrich 

 and the gallinules, and other macrodactylic birds; and 

 it is not a little remarkable that its sternal bone partakes 

 of the undivided character of that of the one race, and 

 the elongated one of the other. 



STERNA OF THE CRANE FAMILY. 



The cranes arid the herons are not only found in 

 places bearing considerable resemblance to each other, 

 but some of the species are externally so much alike 

 that they have been very generally considered as 

 forming one tribe and sometimes only one genus. 



The grand distinction between the cranes and the 

 herons, whether we consider them as distinct groups 

 or merely as genera (and the distinction is perhaps 

 broad enough to amount to the former), is that the 

 cranes have much more of a landward character than 

 the herons, and they are also much more discursive 

 and migratory, though from their habit of fishing or 

 otherwise feeding in the shallows of the waters, herons 

 c c2 



