STORKS. 



163 



.Australia also has only one species. The different forms, with the exception of the 

 true storks, are so distributed that it would seem as if a species inhabiting one part of 

 the world is nearer related to those inhabiting distant regions than to those which live 

 on the same continent. The South American maguari stork, for instance, is more 

 nearly allied to the Old World forms than it is to either the jabiru or the wood-ibis, 

 which are both American. The true storks are strictly Palaeogaean, while the curious 

 open-bills are Indo-African. 



Fig. 79. Pseudotantalus rhodinopterut, African wood-ibis. 



The stork family has been traced as far back as the miocene formation, from the 

 beds of which, in France, A. Milne-Edwards has described a species, Pelargopappus 

 magnus. 



The wood-ibises form a somewhat isolated group of apparent affinities to the true 

 ibises, with which they were formerly associated by most systematists, and one species, 

 Pseudotantalus rhodinopterus, was, indeed, regarded as the ibis, that is, the sacred 

 ibis of the Egyptians, until the beginning of this century. The resemblance is 

 quite obvious in the sub-cylindrical and gently curved bill as represented in the accom- 



