SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN. 497 
genus unless new discoveries shall supply him with a com- 
panion. This being settled, we shall proceed to give a minute 
description, that will therefore comprehend both its generic 
and specific characters. 
Although there can be no doubt that our bird is the Guar- 
auna of Marcerave, it would be committing a great error to 
take it for the Scolopax (or Numenius) guarauna of syste- 
matical writers, that being a very different bird, a species of 
genuine Jbis, which they ought to place under their Zantalus, 
and which has nothing in common with our bird except a 
somewhat similar speckled appearance, the only source of all 
this confusion. 
Instituting a genus for this bird does not, however, decide 
the question where it ought to be placed, for it may still be 
inquired, in what part of the system shall we arrange the 
genus? ‘The reader cannot fail to be surprised that we, who 
made a species of rail of the same bird, should place it as a 
genus in a very distant family. But this is the result of more 
mature reflection, and however apparently remote may appear 
to be at first sight the two families Rallide and Ardeide, we 
have already seen that the subgenus Avrdeola claims some 
analogy with the former, and the Aramus forms a still better 
and closer link. It was principally on account of the greatly 
compressed form of its body that we called it a rail, and upon 
well examining the singular form of its bill, which is not 
observed in any other bird, every ornithologist will be satisfied 
of the propriety of the course we have finally adopted. We 
have no hesitation in placing it in the Ardetdw, where it 
is eminently distinguished from all its fellow-genera by its 
toes, cleft to the base, and entirely separated, Together with 
Eurypyga, it aberrates somewhat towards the Scolopacide, 
whilst by the manner of insertion of its hind toe it tends a 
little towards the Psophide, subfamily Grucne (Cuvier even 
going so far as to make it a genuine Grus), and claims again 
a well-founded resemblance to the most typical form of the 
genus Fallus. 
VOL, Ill, 21 
