THE WINDPIPE IN HERONS. 
they are not put together, where is poor Scopus to go ? 
It is neither one nor the other with sufficient definite- 
ness to please the exigeant systematist who wants cut- 
and-driedness. Mention has been made of the voice of 
the umbre. The voice is not melodious ; but the chief 
thing is that it 7s a voice. Now, the true storks are 
voiceless, though they make a most efficient din by 
clattering their bills. Yet this is no more a voice than 
the chattering and gibbering of a ghost. To produce a 
voice, a voice organ must exist ; and Scopus has one as 
good as that of any screaming or even some singing 
birds. Storks, on the other hand, only show in rare 
cases, such as the African Abdimia, an approach to a 
proper voice organ. As a rule, the windpipe divides 
into its two bronchi without modifying itself to form 
that assemblage of rods of cartilage movable by a pair 
of muscles which constitutes the organ of song or speech 
in birds. Then, again, Scopus does not possess that 
curious muscle, so useful in perching, because it flexes 
certain tendons of the foot, which is nearly universally 
found in storks and more universally absent in herons 
and bitterns. 
SAND GROUSE 
There are a good many species of sand grouse; but 
one, viz. Syrrhaptes arenarius, is the most interesting to 
us, Inasmuch as it is that bird which at times migrates 
in countless hordes from its Asiatic home and invades 
Europe even to the confines of the West. The name 
sand grouse is derived in the first place from its pre- 
dilection for sandy spots, and in the second from the 
fact that it was originally confused with the grouse 
mainly on account of the feathered feet. The colour 
betrays the desert-loving ways of the bird; it is dull 
yellow, mottled and speckled with darker shades. The 
general look of the bird is dove-like, but the flight has 
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