122 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



usually defined, while the typical forms were scattered about among "Herodii, Macro- 

 dactyli, and Lobipedes." A better name for the group if regarded as an order is 

 therefore Paludicolae. It also corresponds pretty nearly to Huxley's ' family ' Gerano- 

 morphae, which he characterized as having a relatively strong bill, the angle of the 

 mandible truncated, and not produced into a slender and abruptly recurved process ; 

 as lacking basipterygoid processes, with only one known exception, and as having a 

 comparatively narrow sternum. To this we may add that the breast-bone is either 

 truncated behind without notches, or it has one pair of notches and the lateral pro- 



FIG. 58. 1'tiopkia crtpitans, trumpeter. 



cesses reaching beyond the body of the sternum ; the area of the origin of the obtu- 

 rator internus muscle is triangular, and not oval ; two well-developed caeca are always 

 present. The pterylosis is not characteristic, and powder-downs are never present. 

 Although some of the members of the super-family extend their breeding range even 

 within the Arctic region, still the great majority are strictly tropical. 



Evidently related to the kagu and the seriema, and likewise in their structure 

 exhibiting characters to a certain degree uniting rails and cranes, the South American 

 trumpeter birds, PSOPHIID^E, form the first family. The legs are rather high, and the 

 toes short, the hind one small and elevated. The bill is short and vaulted, almost 



