390 STEilNU^I OF THE IBIS. 



either very swift or very ready wings, tliey have all 

 considerable power of continuance on their flight. 

 They are also light birds in proportion to the extent 

 of their wings, and therefore they fly high on their 

 long flights ; and, as is the case with the true grallidge 

 or wading birds, they fly with the feet backwards, and 

 use these in steering their course, in supplement to 

 the tail, which is, generally speaking, short. 



The example above given must be considered not 

 as an average of the crane family, as the storks do 

 not strictly belong either to the cranes or to the 

 herons, though they resemble both ; but it is a 

 tolerable average of the sternal apparatus of Cuvier's 

 sub-order cultrirostres. 



Intermediate between these and the graHidae,which 

 include the pressirostres and longirostres of Cuvier, 

 which have much less difference in their haunts and 

 style of flight, and consequently in their sternal 

 apparatus, than in their bills, there are some species 

 or genera, which require distinct notice. These are the 

 ibises and the spoon-bills, which are more discursive 

 than almost any members of the crane or heron 

 families. The birds which may be considered as 

 forming this group do not suit well with the genera 

 with which they are usually classed according to the 

 bill. That of the spoon-bills is not in the coulter or 

 knife-shape, as may be seen by looking back at a sketch 

 of it given on a former page ; while that of the ibis, 

 though it resembles in shape the bill of the curlew, 

 and certainly deserves the epithet " long," is not of 

 the same texture vdth the generality of those bills of 

 which length has been taken as the distinguishing 

 character. The genus tantalus, which resembles ibis 

 in many particulars, has the bill straight ; and there 

 are various other srenera included in the cultrirostres 



