CHAPTER XVIII 



THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS 



(Order Ciconiiformes) 



HE general appropriateness of associating most of the birds of this 

 order under the name of Stork-like birds will be appreciated at a 

 glance, for the majority of them have the long legs, long, slender 



Pneck, and elongated bills broadly characteristic of the Storks; but, 

 as will be shown later, these characters are on the whole rather superficial, for 

 birds that are really not very closely related to them, such as Cranes and Rails, 

 possess many of the same features, while others are so very unlike the typical 



I Stork-like form that the casual observer would never think of placing them 

 together. And in this connection it may be confessed that ornithologists them- 

 selves are by no means agreed as to the closeness of relationship implied by 

 placing them in the same order. Some students would separate quite widely 

 the groups here brought together, but as the state of our knowledge is not such 

 as to afford a final word on the subject, it may be accepted as perhaps the best 

 expression of the facts now obtainable. 



The characters relied upon for defining this order are necessarily of a some- 

 what technical nature, but there seems no way of avoiding their use. Therefore 

 the Ciconiiformes may be described as birds in which the feet are not raptorial, 

 but are fitted for wading or swimming. They are either wading birds with very 

 long legs and toes not fully webbed, or if the toes are fully webbed the bill is bent 

 abruptly downward from the middle, or they are swimming birds with the hallux 

 connected with the inner toe by a full web. The palate is of the so-called "band 

 form" (desmognathous) ; the basipterygoid processes at the base of the skull 

 are absent, as is the spina interna; the coracohumeral groove is deep and 

 distinct; there is but a single pair of tracheosternal muscles, and the blind 

 intestines (caeca) are rudimentary and not functional. 



The order Ciconiiformes may be divided into four well-marked suborders: 

 the Steganopodes orTotipalmate Swimmers (Tropic-birds, Cormorants, Anhingas, 

 Pelicans, Gannets, and Man-o'-war Birds), the Ardea or Herons and their 

 allies, the Ciconia or Storks and Ibises, and the Phcenicopteri or Flamingos. 

 As will be later set forth more at length, there are differences of opinion as to 

 the placing of the Flamingos in the Ciconiiformes, some, indeed, giving them 

 independent ordinal rank between the present and the following order (Anseri- 

 formes). This would rather accord with the views of Huxley, but later studies 

 would seem to range them more nearly with the Stork-like birds. The super- 

 families and families into which they are variously divided are more fully 

 described under their respective headings. 



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