Fig. 27.–Whale-head or Shoe-bill. Balaeniceps rex. × 1⁄14.
The sexes are usually alike; but the female has ordinarily shorter plumes, and may be duller, as may the young, though the stages of plumage are not yet completely worked out. White or rufous markings are often noticeable, especially in immature specimens of Ardea; there is little red about the head in those of Dichromanassa, though in Hydranassa the amount is greater than in the adult; those of Florida are generally very white; and, conversely, white species often shew grey tints in early life; while immature examples of Nycticorax differ entirely from their parents, being brown with white or buff spotting above, and white with dusky stripes below.
The bill, feet, naked lores, and orbits may be reddish, bluish, green, yellow, brown, or black.
Balaeniceps rex, the Shoe-bill, of the White Nile, has a short crest, and is brownish-grey with blackish wings, tail, and feet, the bill being yellow with dusky mottlings. It usually forms large flocks, and frequents bushy morasses. The flight is Heron-like, and the birds will often settle on trees; the young run about with extended wings and clattering bills.[[93]] The food consists of fish, frogs, snakes, molluscs, and even carrion. A mere hole in the dry soil often contains the chalky white eggs, from two to twelve in number, but a lining of herbage is frequently added.
Fig. 28.–Hammer-head. Scopus umbretta. × ⅙. (From Nature.)
Fam. VII. Scopidae.–Scopus umbretta, the Hammer-head, of Madagascar and a large part of the Ethiopian Region, is purplish-brown, with black tail-bars, wider towards the tip; the head exhibits a thick erectile crest, generally carried horizontally; the bill is black and the feet are brownish. It frequents wooded districts near water, and is usually found in pairs; not being very shy, except when breeding, and being more active at dusk than in the daytime. At night it roosts in trees. The neck is slightly curved in flight, but the feet are outstretched, while the gait on the ground is deliberate. The note is a harsh quack or weak metallic sound; the food consists of fish, reptiles, frogs, worms, molluscs, and insects captured in shallow water, and while feeding the birds have a curious habit of skipping round each other with extended wings. The nest is an enormous structure of sticks, lined with roots, grass, rushes, or clay, having a hole at the side, and ordinarily a flat top; it is placed in a tree, on a rocky ledge, or exceptionally on the ground. Three to five white eggs form the complement. Native imagination associates this species with witchcraft.
Besides the extinct brevipennate Nycticorax megacephalus of Rodriguez, known to the first colonists, and the fossil Butorides mauritianus of the Mare aux Songes, this Sub-Order furnishes Proherodius oweni from the London Clay (Lower Eocene); Ardea from the Miocene of France and Germany, and the Pliocene of Oregon.
Fam. VIII. Ciconiidae.–Of the Sub-Order Ciconiae, the first Family is that of the Storks, which have long necks and also long stout beaks, usually straight and fairly cylindrical, but occasionally compressed, as in Leptoptilus, upturned towards the tip, as in Mycteria, or decurved, as in Tantalus; in Anastomus there is a wide gap between the grooved mandibles, the edges of the maxilla possessing fine horny lamellae. Very remarkable, moreover, are the unprotected pervious nostrils, which are mere perforations in the bony sheath. The tibia is partly bare, while the elongated metatarsus is covered with hexagonal scales, becoming more reticulated behind in Leptoptilus and Mycteria; the partially webbed front toes and flattened claws are in most cases very short–though lengthened and more slender in Tantalus–and rest upon horny pads,[[94]] the hallux being slightly elevated. The wings are ample and fairly long, with eleven stout primaries in Ciconia and twelve elsewhere, and from fourteen to twenty-five secondaries, the inner of which are often greatly developed. The short tail is normally even or slightly rounded, with twelve broad feathers, but in Dissura it is deeply forked[[95]] and rigid, while the unusually stiff coverts extending from beneath are easily mistaken for rectrices. In Leptoptilus these elongated coverts are soft, and are the genuine "Marabou feathers." The furcula is U-shaped, the tongue rudimentary, the aftershaft present or absent, and there are no powder-down patches; the trachea in the male of Tantalus ibis has several intrathoracic convolutions,[[96]] while there is an entire want of syringeal muscles. The adults and young possess uniform down, that of the nestlings being greyish or whitish.