486 PEALE’S EGRET HERON. 
pendent family. But the Grune, of which the crane is the 
type, bear a strong analogy, and even in many respects so 
much affinity, to the gallinaceous birds, having shorter feet, 
vegetable food, and even their habits being terrestrial, that 
we think proper to unite them as a subdivision or subfamily 
with the Alectrides. The artificial character (which, as we 
are not now treating of them, is all that need be mentioned) 
by which they may be at once distinguished from the Arderde 
consists in having the hind toe short, and inserted so high up. 
as to be raised from the ground except merely at the tip; 
while in the Ardeide it is long, and bears with its whole length 
on the ground, or nearly so. But as, according to the axiom 
of the great Linné, the character does not constitute the genus, 
even if the most general and characteristic mark should fail 
us, it is still no reason why the group is not natural which it 
has hitherto been believed to represent. A minute peculiarity 
may furnish a most useful though artificial generic or specific 
character, while an apparently important and evidently natural 
one may be of no use for this purpose. In our system, the 
family Ardezde is composed of nine genera, of which none is 
subdivided except Ardea itself, which with Ciconia are all 
that are strictly typical. Besides the more direct relations, 
this family is connected with the Rallidw by the curious 
though anomalous courlan, also allied to the Gruine by its 
feet, as well as to the Scolopacide. But to these the genus 
Eurypyga forms a very strongly marked and still better 
passage. At the same time the Platalea, which in its feet 
shows the transition to Phanicopteride, and by its curiously 
flattened bill stands alone, is so similar in internal conformation, 
and especially the sternal apparatus, to the genus Jbzs, that 
they ought in this respect to go together ; though Tantalus, 
one of the bide, is constructed rather upon the osseous 
plan of the Ardeide! Scopus, Anastomus, Canchroma, and 
even Dromas to a minor extent, each and all exhibits striking 
anomalies in their bills, so that Ardea and Ciconia are the 
only two typical genera with sharp-pointed bills of the whole 
