THE INDIAN SHELL-EATEE, 
253 
of a beautiful lady^ has compared her to the Egret, in the 
following pretty lines : — 
" They call that bird an Egret, whose light plume 
Fans the spring-zephyr's delicate perfume ; 
Whose snow-white bosom, in fine lace-work set, 
Is circled with a feathering coronet ; — 
A queen-like bird ! the slenderest, purest thing 
That drops on earth, or frolics on the wing, 
Or wanders where the limpid waters rise. 
Or haunts the woods with birds of paradise*." 
Among the Ibis group is a singular genus, called Ana- 
stomuSj from an open space being left on the cutting margin 
of the beak, even when the mandibles are closed at the end. 
Prom the studies of Messrs. Jerdon and Elliott in India, it 
would seem that no such open space exists in the young 
birds, and that it is caused in the adult birds by their con- 
stantly feeding on the animal of a fresh- water mussel ( Unio) ; 
seizing the shell with their beak, and crushing it to get at 
the contents, wears, it would appear, in course of time, the 
edges of the mandibles. 
One species is very common in India, the Anastomus 
CoromandelicuSy or Indian Shell-eater (Plate XVIII. jSg. 1), 
* Lines on the Portrait of the Marchioness of Aylesbury. Heath's ' Book 
of Beauty,' 1840, p. 13. 
