The Courlans are a peculiar American family, intermediate between the Cranes and the Rails. Of the two known species, which are nearly allied, one occurs in the Argentine Republic. 382. ARAMUS SCOLOPACEUS (Gm.). (SOUTHERN COURLAN.) +Aramus scolopaceus+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 504 (Paraná); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 141; _iid. P. Z. S._ 1869, p. 160; _Hudson, P. Z. S._ 1876, p. 102 (Buenos Ayres); _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 196 (Buenos Ayres); _Gibson, Ibis_, 1880, p. 160 (Buenos Ayres); _Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 277 (Entrerios). _Description._--Above brown; forehead, lores, and chin greyish white; neck striped with white: beneath similar; bill brown; legs greenish grey: whole length 24·0 inches, wing 13·0, tail 5·0. _Female_ similar. _Hab._ South America. This curious bird has a blackish-brown plumage, glossed with bronze on the upper parts; its total length is about two feet and a half, and the wings, when spread, measure nearly four feet from tip to tip. It has been called "an abnormal relative of the Rails at most," and in its peculiar flight and many of its habits certainly differs very widely from the Rails. The beak of this bird is nearly 5 inches long, straight, and of an iron hardness; the tip is slightly bent to one side, the lower mandible somewhat more than the upper. The tongue extends to the extremity of the beak; at the end it is of a horny toughness, and frayed or split into filaments. This beak is a most effective instrument in opening shells; for where mollusks abound the Courlan subsists exclusively on them, so that the margins of the streams which this bird frequents are strewn with innumerable shells lying open and emptied of their contents. Every shell has an angular piece, half an inch long, broken from the edge of one valve. Mussels and clams close their shells so tightly that it would perhaps be impossible for a bird to insert his beak, however knife-like in shape and hardness, between the valves in order to force them open; therefore I believe the Courlan first feels the shell with his foot whilst wading, then with quick dexterity strikes his beak into it before it closes, and so conveys it to the shore. Otherwise it would be most difficult for the bird to lift the closed shell from the water and to carry it to land; but supposing it could do this, and afterwards succeed in drilling a hole through it with its beak, the hole thus made would have jagged edges and be irregular in shape. But the hole is, as I have said, angular and with a clean edge, showing that the bird had just thrust his beak half an inch or an inch between the valves, then forced them open, breaking the piece out during the process, and probably keeping the shell steady by pressing on it with its feet.