422 



STRUCTURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS 



figures annexed. In the one the flexor hallucis was united 

 to the flexor communis by two distinct vincula, one before 

 the trifurcation of the latter tendon, the other attached to 

 the tendon supplying digit II. In a specimen of Ciconia 

 nigra dissected by Forbes there was an identical arrange- 

 ment. In the other Scopus (see fig. 195) only the last of 

 the two vincula was present, i.e. that passing to tendon of 

 digit II. 



For the skeleton of Scopus see Milne-Edwaeds's account.' 

 The skull is on the whole niiore 

 stork-like than heron-like, but it does 

 not show any of the extreme modifi- 

 cations of the stork type. The bony 

 interorbital septum, as in the storks, is 

 not largely fenestrate. The inner 

 lamina of the palatines does not reach 

 the posterior boundary of those bones. ^ 

 In front, at about the middle of the 

 interpalatine vacuity, the palatines are 

 produced into a short lateral process ; 

 this is well marked in many storks, 

 but also in Cancroma, to the skull of 

 which heron that of Scopus shows 

 another point of likeness ; in both 

 (aftee i^QgQ birds a deepish groove runs from 

 the end of the nostril to the end of the 

 bill. This groove is also found, though it is not so con- 

 spicuous, in Ardea and Butorides, and (among storks only) 

 in Platalea ; it is suggestive of a recently closed, more 

 elongated nostril, like that of the cranes. The procoracoid 

 is more rudimentary than in storks, but the coracoids overlap 

 at insertion. 



Fig. 197.— Syrinx 

 Leptoptilus 

 Weldon). 



Family CiconiidsB. — I include in this family not only the 

 true storks but also the wood ibises {Tantalus) . Gaerod ^ 



' Histoire Naiurelle, dc, de Madagascar, ' Oiseaux,' p. 514. 

 ^ F. E. Beddakd, ' Notes on the Convoluted Trachea of a Curassow (No- 

 thocrax urumutum), and on the Syrinx in certain Storks,' P. Z. S. 1886, p. 321. 



