_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. [Illustration: FIG. 28.–Hammer-head. _Scopus umbretta._ × ⅙. (From _Nature_.)] {95}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.