HERONS AND THEIR ALLIES 



(Order Herodiones) 



Spoonbills, herons, storks, bitterns, ibises, flamingoes, egrets, 

 or white herons, and their kindred compose an order remark- 

 able for the large average size of its members, all of whom have 

 either long legs or necks, or both. Most of these birds belong 

 to the tropics ; and while many of them formerly reached our 

 southern states in great numbers, the greed of the plume hunter, 

 incited by the thoughtless vanity of women, has nearly exter- 

 minated a number of the most beautiful species. The majority 

 of these birds are either local or have now become too rare to be 

 included in this book. 



Ibises 



(Family Ibididce) 



Slender, picturesque birds, long of neck, bill, legs, and wings, 

 and very short tailed. A bare space around eye; claws almost 

 like human nails. Silent birds, always living in flocks, chiefly 

 on shores of smaller bodies of water or on bars and lower 

 beaches on which the outgoing tide leaves a harvest of small 

 crustaceans, which with frogs, lizards, small fish, etc., form 

 their food. Sexes alike ; young different. 



White Ibis, or Spanish Curlew. 



Storks and Wood Ibises 



(Family Ciconiidce) 



Unhappily these storks still retain the name "ibis," which 

 no amount of scientific protest seems possible to shake off. 

 General form as in preceding group; but bill, which is as broad 

 as the face at base, has tip curved downward. Four long toes, 



