26o GRUIFORMES 



CHAP. 



stalk about in stately fashion, stoop when running, and fly a little 

 when hard pressed. The barking or screaming cry is chiefly heard 

 towards dusk ; the food consists of small mammals, snakes, lizards, 

 snails, worms, insects and their larvae, as well as berries, Ohunga 

 preferring the insect diet. Easily domesticated, and in Brazil 

 protected by custom, these birds will guard their owners' fowls ; 

 while the male at times incubates and shews off to the females in 

 spring, like a Bustard. Cariama builds a nest of twigs in low trees or 

 bushes; Chunga generally chooses the ground; but in either case the 

 young soon leave their quarters ; the two eggs have a pale ground- 

 colour with rufous blotches, as in so many Eails. The Seriemti 

 has been hatched in the Zoological Society's Gardens in London. 



The fossil FJwrorhacJios and certain others of the so-called 

 Stereornithes (p. 44) probably belong here. 



Fam. VI. Otididae. — The Bustards are here admitted as a 

 Family of the Gruiformes, though many writers have preferred 

 to refer them to the Limicolae, and the question is by no means 

 finally settled. The head is flat, the neck thick, the bill some- 

 what blunt and depressed, being either short, as in Otis and 

 Trachelotis, or longer, as in Neotis and Lissotis. The meta- 

 tarsus varies much, the length for instance being comparatively 

 great in Houbaropsis, and small in Otis tetrax, while both 

 surfaces are covered with reticulated scales ; the short, stout 

 toes have flattish nails, and the hallux is absent, as in many 

 Limicoline forms. The wings are moderate, with the 

 secondaries almost equal to the primaries, the latter — which 

 are acuminate in Sypheotis — being eleven in number, and 

 the former about twenty ; the tail, of medium length, has a 

 more or less rounded outline, and possesses from fourteen to 

 twenty rectrices. Ornamental plumes are characteristic of this 

 group, and take the form of decided crests on the crown and 

 nape, or on the latter alone, in all the genera except Otis, Neotis, 

 Lissotis, Trachelotis, and Sypheotis ; the last-named, however, 

 has elongated cheek -feathers with bare shafts and spatulate 

 webs. The plumes of the throat and fore-neck are lengthened 

 and shield the breast in Hoiiiaropsis and Eupodotis, those of the 

 sides of the neck form a ruff in Houbara ; while Otis is remark- 

 able for the prolonged ear-coverts, and for the tuft of long bristly 

 feathers on each side of the base of the mandible in the male. 



The nostrils are pervious, the tongue is sagittate, the furcula 



