IN STORKS AND SPOONBILLS. 287 
considerably flattened in what would be the lateral direction, which 
through the convolutions it has been called upon to make, is twisted, 
~so that the flattening appears to be nearly antero-posterior, the 
median ridge, developed posteriorly, being placed considerably on the 
right side. : 
About an inch above this flexure, in which the bronchi bifurcate, 
the previously deep double rings suddenly cease to be developed as 
such, and return to their normal condition just before the peculiarly 
situated and simple syrinx is reached. 
There are altogether 82 of the ossified double rings in the modified 
portion of the windpipe. 
The earlier bronchial rings are peculiar in being deep, the fibro- 
cartilaginous rings being ossified and thickened above and below for 
a certain portion (the external) of their circumference. 
Platalea ajaja.—The peculiar convolution, within the thorax, of 
the trachea in Platalea leucorodia is well figured by Mr. Yarrell.* 
The arrangement in Platalea ajaja is, however, quite different. A 
pair of these birds was purchased by the Society on the 13th of 
August, 1870. The female dying on the 27th of July, and the male 
on the 13th of October, 1873, have given me the opportunity of ex- 
amining the windpipe in both sexes. The trachea is simple, straight, 
of uniform calibre, and peculiarly short, extending only two-thirds 
down the length of the neck, where the uncomplicated syrinx is 
situated and the bifurcation of the bronchi occurs. The usual pair 
of muscles, one on each side, runs to this syrinx from above, and 
ceases there. The bronchi are fusiformly dilated at their commence- 
ment, where the rings which encircle them are not complete, a mem- Page 301. 
brane taking their place in that portion of each tube which is con- 
tiguous to its opposite neighbour. Each bronchus, lower down, is 
composed of complete cartilaginous rings (vide fig. 2, p. 288). 
By many ornithologists Tantalus is arranged along with Platalea 
and Ibis, instead of with the Storks. Nitzsch, in his “ Pterylo- 
graphy,” places it with Oiconia in his group Pevarci, separating off 
Platalea and Ibis to form the Hemigtormmes. In the “ Revised List” 
of the Animals in the Society’s Gardens, Mr. Sclater adopts the same 
arrangement. In my paper ‘“‘On the Nasal Bones of Birds,” f it is 
mentioned that Platalea and Ibis are schizorhinal—that is, have the 
external osseous nares split up in a manner there described, in which 
point they differ from the rest of Prof. Huxley’s Pelargomorphe, and 
therefore from Tantalus. 
There are many other structural peculiarities which make it per- 
* “ British Birds,” vol. ii. p. 504. 
+ “ Proceedings of the Zoological Society,”’ 1873, p.33. (Supra, p. 124.) 
