i56 GRALLATORES: WADERS OR STILTED BIRDS. 



doubtful. The Cranes are followed by the Ibises (Tantalinae) whose 

 narrow elongated and arched beak strikingly expressive of a suctorial 

 mode of feeding at once refers them to the fourth position among the 

 divisions of the family, the character of the subfamily is taken from 

 the form of the beak, approaching the Limosinae. The tip of the 

 bill is obtuse, the nostrils are linear aud naked in a groove, the Hallux 

 is long enough to be spread upon the ground, and strong. There are 

 three Genera, Tantalus, Ibis and Geronticus, together containing 

 under 80 species. North America can illustrate the genus Ibis, but 

 none of these birds occur so far north as Canada. 



There remains the subfamily Plataleinae to complete our sketch of 

 the Ardeidae. The swelled or expanded, sometimes depressed beak» 

 eupplies the character and being a frequent accompaniment of the 

 Natatorial or Fissirostral type is here assumed as marking the fifth or 

 lowest subfamily. The known generic forms are three : Platalea the 

 Spoonbill, of which there is a species in the Southern United States, 

 as well as a well known European one and several others, Balaeuiceps 

 an extraordinary bird from the interior of Africa, and Cancroma found 

 in South America. They are all Strange Anomalous forms, well dis- 

 tinguished generically, but kept together by the much expanded bill. 



The second of the great families of Grallatores is Charadridae, 

 Plovers, and the very reason, it is probable, which induces other 

 xoologists to place it first or last in the order, according as their series 

 is descending or ascending, is what Influences me to assign to it the 

 second place — ^namely, that the peculiarities of the order are less 

 strikingly impressed upon it, and it makes a certain approach towards 

 the ordinary character of bird-life. Hence it is the expression of that 

 peculiarity which belongs to birds in the whole vertebrate series, to 

 the Insessores or Perchers as compared with the more deviative orders, 

 and in each of those orders to the family which is least marked by the 

 special characteristics. In an attempt to form a series this would of 

 course lead to their being made the joining points with the higher 

 birds. When we reject any general series, and express our sense of 

 relation by analogous positions, it leads to an arrangement of the fam- 

 ilies in each order, which shows the one nearest to birds in general, 

 always occupying the second position, whilst that which displays the 

 highest development consistent with the type has the first assigned to 

 it. Charadridae have the bill of moderate length seldom longer than 

 ihe head, with the basal portion of the culmen usually depressed and 



