312 DR. H. GADOW ON THE INTESTINAL [May 21, 
extreme length of their gut thrown into numerousstraight and oblique, 
or quite irregular, convolutions renders comparison very difficult. 
They have probably branched off very early from the main ortho- 
ccelous stock in the Antarctic region, and thus have had time to 
assume, through intense specialization, those pseudoprimitive cha- 
racters in their whole organization which now separate the few 
surviving forms from the rest of the birds. 
The Lamellirostres, to which belongs Palamedea as a probably 
very old member, are all orthoccelous, and combine peri- and plagio- 
ccelous characters in their second loop. The five or six principal 
loops are alternating ; the last four are closed and straight. As 
typically orthoccelous, aquatic birds, and as Preecoces, they agree of 
course with the Pygopodes, and the root of the stock of the 
Lamellirostres has to be looked for in this direction alone; they 
form, however, such a homogeneous, principally herbivorous, group, 
that they claim subordinal rank for themselves. 
The Pelargi, containing the Hemiglottides (Ibis and Platalea), 
Phenicopterus, and the Ciconia, are rather diverging forms, which 
can be characterized as possessing four very long and mostly closed 
loops (with occasional secondary loops intercalated), of which the 
first three or some of them have a tendency to coil their apical ends 
up into a more or less irregular spiral; this leads sometimes to an 
almost mesogyrous formation. 
The Hemiglottides approach nearest to the Limicole, although 
their points of resemblance with Nuwmenius may possibly be cases of 
convergence only. Very closely allied to, in fact inseparable from, 
the Hemiglottides, and connecting them with Tantalus, and thus 
with the Ciconiz proper, is Phanicopterus; there is not one single 
feature in the whole of the digestive system in which this bird 
differs from the Pelargi and resembles the Lamellirostres, except 
in the presence of small but functional cxeca, which are nearly lost in 
the Pelargi. But these cxca stand in direct relation to the food of 
the Flamingoes, which consists of the conferve in the mud of the 
lagoons. The zoophagous Pelargi have lost them, the phyto- 
phagous Flamingoes have preserved them. 
The Ciconiinz proper, represented by Ciconia, and connected with 
the former genera by Tantalus, are essentially telogyrous; their 
second loop is right-handed, and accompanies the duodenum ; this 
is a rare feature, but considering that it occurs again only in the 
Gallinaceous group, and in some of their further allies, it must have 
been acquired independently by the Storks. It is of taxonomic 
value for the diagnosis of the subfamilies of the Pelargi. 
The Pelargi are often classed with the Herodii, but these two 
families differ from each other in almost every point of primary 
importance. Since, however, each of them possesses various points 
in common with the Steganopodes, whilst they differ from each other 
in these same points, we have to conclude that the Pelargi, Herodii, 
and Steganopodes are three equivalent groups, which are distantly 
allied to each other, the relations between the two latter being 
closer than those of either with the Pelargi. 
