DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF SCOPUS 
and extends to Madagascar. It has the reputation of 
being a bird of evil omen. In Africa it is held to be 
sacred and to possess the power of witchcraft. There 
is indeed something portentous and solemn about the 
behaviour of all these herons and bitterns, which easily 
accounts for the origin of such legends. Scopus is 
mainly crepuscular in habit, and is known to utter a 
croaking cry, which is significant, as will be seen pre- 
sently, of its place in the ornithological temple. It 
feeds upon fish, frogs, lizards, and insects, and appears 
to enjoy an esthetic sense not possessed by its immedi- 
ate allies, but paralleled in other groups of birds—ex- 
celled, of course, in the well-known bower birds. It 
adorns its nest in fact with buttons, fragments of pot- 
tery, bits of glass, and any other bright-looking objects 
which happen to come in its way. The nest itself. is 
eminently worthy of note. It is huge in size, and com- 
plicated in design. Instead of being content with one 
compartment alone, in which all the offices of nest life 
are performed, Scopus requires no less than three sepa- 
rate chambers, all included in the vast dome situated 
upon the fork of a tree which it inhabits. This is an 
unheard-of luxury in the bird world, especially as the 
umbre does not take in any lodgers, such as cuckoos. 
It is only recently that this bird has been acquired by 
the Zoological Society. The first specimen was ex- 
hibited in 1880. To most persons the outward appear- 
ance of Scopus suggests a stork. And it is a fact that in 
a large number of points Scopus is decidedly stork-like. 
On the whole its skeleton recalls those birds. But in 
other features of its anatomy the bird is as distinctly 
inclined to the heron build, and, in short, it is a perfect 
instance of a bird which is intermediate between two 
distinct families ; and this is one, and that not a bad 
reason, for putting together the storks and herons, as is 
usually, but not always, done by ornithologists. If 
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