_Mycteria americana_, the "Jabiru," ranging from Texas to Argentina, is white, with black head, neck, bill, and feet; the naked head having a hairy patch on the occiput, and the bare neck a red distensible basal band. The Australian and Papuan _M._ (_Xenorhynchus_) _australis_ is black with purple and green gloss, except the back and lower surface, which are white; the head and neck are feathered, the bill is black, the feet are red. The Indian _M. indica_ is barely separable. _M._ (_Ephippiorhynchus_) _senegalensis_, the Ethiopian "Saddle-billed Stork," differs in having a triangular frontal shield of yellow skin, a naked crimson pectoral spot, a crimson bill with black median band, and black metatarsi with reddish joints. _Dissura episcopus_ of the Indian and Ethiopian {99}Regions is metallic black with white abdomen and under tail-coverts, downy white head and neck with black crown, reddish bill and feet. _D. maguari_ of South America has the head and neck feathered, naked red lores and sides of the throat, white plumage with black wings and tail, yellowish bill and red feet. _Ciconia_ (_Abdimia_) _abdimii_ of the Ethiopian Region is bronzy-black with white lower surface; the chin, membranous forehead, and tip of the bill being orange-red, the remainder of the bill greenish and the bare cheeks bluish. _C. nigra_, the Black Stork of British lists, is iridescent black, with white breast and belly, red bill, feet, and orbits; _C. alba_, the White Stork, a much more common visitor here, is white with black wings and orbits, red bill and feet. The former–reckoning for the irregular distribution characteristic of the Family–may be said to inhabit Europe, Palaearctic Asia, and North Africa, wintering southward to India and Cape Colony; the latter is more abundant within a like area, and is represented in East Siberia, China, and Japan by _C. boyciana_ with black bill and red orbits. The sexes in this group are similar; but when immature the whiter species are often more dusky, and the blacker species brownish, while the bill and legs may then be greenish instead of red, as in _C. nigra_, or the head and neck more feathered, as in _Tantalus_. The Fossils referred to this Family are _Propelargus_ of the Upper Eocene of France, _Pelargodes_, _Tantalus_, and possibly _Leptoptilus_ of its Miocene; _Amphipelargus_ of the Pliocene of Samos; _Palaeociconia_ of the Plistocene of Brazil; _Palaeopelargus_ and _Xenorhynchus_ of that of Queensland.