348 



The Crane-like Birds 



their young. The nest appears to be placed low down in trees and the eggs, 

 so far as known, are two in number, grayish in color and blotched and spotted 



FIG. 114. - Sun-Bittern, Eurypyga helias. 



with reddish, quite after the manner of the eggs of certain Plovers and Snipes. 

 The food of the Sun-Bitterns consists largely of flies and other insects, which 

 they secure by rapidly darting out the long neck. 



THE FINFEET 



(Family H eliornithida) 



The last of the families of Crane-like birds remaining to be considered com- 

 prises the anomalous Finfeet, or Sun Grebes, which have been bandied from place 

 to place in the system, finding successively a resting place near the Grebes, the 

 Rails, and the Cranes, and their geographical distribution is as hard to interpret 

 as their structure, for of the three genera and five species, one is found in Central 

 and South America, three in Africa, and the last in eastern Asia. They are small 

 or medium-sized birds, none of them exceeding two feet in length, while one, the 

 American form, is but half this size. They have rather short legs, the toes with 

 scalloped, lateral webs much as in the Grebes, a relatively long and slender neck, 



