ORDER GRALLJE. 421 



SUPPLEMENT ON THE GRALLM. 



These birds are termed echassiers by the French natu- 

 ralists, because many of them, in walking, carry forward the 

 tibia at the same time with the tarsus, wliich gives them an 

 appearance as if they were mounted on stilts (echasses). The 

 illustrious naturalist of Sweden, established as characters of 

 his order grallae, a bill somewhat cylindrical, tongue entire 

 and fleshy, feet for wading, thighs partly naked, body com- 

 pressed, and short tail ; also, feeding on the animalculae of 

 marshes, and making their nests most generally on the ground. 

 The general characters of the grallae, sufficiently vague in 

 their apphcation to the order as it originally stood, have be- 

 come still more so since the introduction into it of the ostrich, 

 the cassowary, and the bustard, which were formerly classed 

 with the gallinae. The denomination of shore-birds, oiseaux 

 de rivage, by the French, considered as synonimous with 

 grallae, properly so called, and also our own term ^^ waders,'''' 

 have ceased to be applicable to all the genera, since the order 

 has been made to embrace inland birds, not frequenters of 

 humid or inundated situations, and which, moreover, espe- 

 cially subsist on grain or herbage. Among the genera, 

 indeed, included by Linnaeus, the agami, and the cariama, are 

 not inhabitants of the water ; nor does the French name, bor- 

 rowed from stilts, appertain to such short-legged birds as the 

 fulicae proper, &c. All, however, comprehended in the Lin- 

 naean arrangement possessed the faculty of flying, which is 



