174. 
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIUDS. 
with its keel uppermost. Some authors enumerate three, 
and others only one species ; but they are all pecuhar to 
the New World. The spoon-bills {Platalea) show a 
different, but a no less singular, form of beak, from 
which their name has been derived. The storks (Ci- 
coni/i L.) are among the largest of the heron family ; one 
species (Ciconia gigantm) measuring, when standing 
erect, near five feet and a half : they are social and useful 
birds ; and from destroying vast numbers of reptiles and 
other vermin, are encouraged, in many countries, to build 
on the habitations of man : the chin and eyes are bare 
of feathers; but in Mycte.rm, which possibly enters 
into this family, the greatest part of the head and 
neck is entirely bare; one species inhabits America, 
one Asia, and one Australia. The tufted umbre 
forms the African genus Scopus, and is the only species 
known ; the plumage is particularly soft, and the back 
of the head furnished with a lax tuft of feathers : this 
is obviously allied to the open-bills {Anastomus 111.), a 
singular form, remarkable for a thick and very powerful 
bill, gaping in the middle. It is impossible to tUvine for 
what purpose this structure, altogetlier unique among 
birds, is intended to perform, since their economy has 
never been explained. These are the principal genera 
which appear to enter into this family, of which the 
herons and cranes form the two most typical groups. 
(19fi.) The Chabadbiadas, or plovers, as already 
intimated, form the subtypical family of this order. It 
seems connected to the AMeadce through the medium of 
the cranes ; the thick-knees, Qidimtcmus ; or, probably, 
by the genus C’nrwmo of Latham, — a form we have never 
minutely examined. In this comprehensive group, the 
feet are long and slender, formeil for great speed • the 
toes are short, and the hinder one is generally wanting; 
the wings are long, and consequently the powers of flight 
are very great. Herons and rails seek the most secluded 
recesses of marshy shades. Plovers and sandpipers, on 
the contrary, live only on sandy and unsheltered shores, 
or on exposed commons ; they congregate in flocks, and 
