Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS

THE STORKS (Family Ciconiidd)

Wood Ibises

The last members of the family to be considered are the Wood Ibises, or Wood Storks. Although it seems now to be pretty definitely settled that their affinities are with the Storks, they form, nevertheless, a sort of connecting link between them and the Ibises.

By many students the characters of the Wood Ibises are regarded of sufficient importance to entitle them to be ranked as a family or subfamily of equal value as that including the Storks, but it perhaps is best in the present instance to consider them as a well-marked group of the Ciconiida.

The Wood Ibises are large Stork-like birds, with long legs and a long neck and beak, the latter being thickened at the base, but much attenuated toward the tip, where it is turned downward, much as in the true Ibises.

The legs are covered with small hexagonal scales, while the toes are long, very slender, and connected basally by a well-developed web. The plumage is compact above but rather loose below; the wings are long and broad, the second, third, and fourth quills being nearly equal in length, while the tail is short, or moderately long, and composed of twelve broad, strong feathers.

Only four species of Wood Ibises are known, these being separable into two genera, — Tantalus, which includes the single American species, and Pseudo-tantalus, which embraces the three Old World forms. In the first, the adult has the whole head and upper half of the neck naked, the skin being hard and scurfy, while in the Old World species only the fore part of the head is naked, the hinder half, as well as the entire neck, being densely feathered. In Tantalus, however, the young birds have the head and neck feathered. In all the species the general color is white, in some tinged with pink or rosy, while the quills and tail are black or brownish. In young birds the mantle is usually darker.

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