92 DIVISION I. VERTEBRAL ANIMALS.— CLASS II. AVES. 
ORDER GRALLZE. WADING BIRDS. 
Iy this order are comprehended, by the present system, the following 
families : — 
Otidide, the Bustards; Chartdriide, the Plovers; Scolopacide, the 
Snipes; Totanide, the Longshanks; Grutde, the Cranes; Ciconidi, the 
Storks ; Ardetde, the Herons; Psophidee, the Trumpeters ; Pulamedeide, 
the Screamers ; /tadlide, the Rails, and Phanicopteride, the Flamingoes. 
Famity Oripip2z. THe Busrarps. 
The Bustards, though placed with the Cassowaries and other short-winged 
birds by many authors, seem to more properly belong with the Giral/le. 
They are found on the open districts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, prefer- 
ring plains or wide-spreading, extensive downs, dotted with low bushes and 
underwood — localities which give them an opportunity of deserying their 
enemy from afar. They are said to fly but rarely, running from danger 
p=] 
with exceeding swiftness, and using their wings, like the ostriches, to accel- 
erate their course. When they do take wing, their flight is low, and they 
skim along the ground with a sufficiently rapid and sustained flight. Their 
food consists of vegetables, insects, worms, grains, and seeds. They are 
polygamous, one male living with many females, which, after fecundation, 
live solitary. Temminck says that it would seem that they moult twice a 
year, and that the males, in the greatest number of species, differ from the 
females in having extraordinary ornaments, and in possessing a more varie- 
gated plumage. He further observes that the young males wear the garb 
of the female during the first and second years, and adds his suspicion that 
the males in winter have the same plumage as the females. Cuvier notices 
their massy port, and the slightly-arched and vaulted upper mandible of 
their beak, which, with the little webs or palmations between the bases of 
their toes, recall the form of the gallinaceous birds; but he adds that the 
nudity of the lower part of their legs, all their anatomy, and even the flavor 
of their flesh, place them among the Gra//e, and that, as they have no hind 
toe, their smallest species approach nearly to the Plovers. 
Fawity CHaraprinx. THe PLovers. 
The habits of Charadrius, the true Ployers, as given by Gray, will serve 
as a type of this group. 
These birds are found in most parts of the world. They are usually 
observed in small flocks in the neighborhood of the sea-coast, the bays, 
