312 DR. H. GADOW ON THE INTESTINAL [May 21, 



extreme length of their gut thrown into numerous straight and oblique, 

 or quite irregular, convolutions renders comparison very difficult. 

 They have probably branched oiF 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- 

 coelous 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 Prsecoces, 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), 

 Phoenicopterus, and the Ciconice, 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 Limicolse, although 

 their points of resemblance with Numenius 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 Ciconise proper, is Phoenicopterus ; there is not one single 

 feature in the whole of the digestive system in which this bird 

 difi'ers from the Pelargi and resembles the Lamellirostres, except 

 in the presence of small but functional casca, which are nearly lost in 

 the Pelargi. But these cseca stand in direct relation to the food of 

 the Flamingoes, which consists of the confervas in the mud of the 

 lagoons. The zoophagous Pelargi have lost them, the phyto- 

 phagous Flamingoes have preserved them. 



The Ciconiinse 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. 



