Next stands the order Gallinae with 4 " cohorts "; (I) Tetraonomorphae, comprising 2 families, the sand-grouse (Pterocles) and the grouse proper, among which the Central American Oreophasis finds itself; (2) Phasianomorphae, with 4 families, pheasants peacocks, turkeys, guinea fowls, partridges, quails, and hemipodes (Turnix); (3) Macronyches, the megapodes, with 2 families; (4) the Duodecimpennatae, the curassows and guans, also with 2 families; (5) the Struthioniformes, composed of the tinamous; and (6) the Subgrallatores with 2 families, one consisting of the curious South American genera Thinocorus and Attagis and the other of the sheathbill (Chionis).
SHEATHBILL, a bird so-called by T.
On his third voyage, while seeking some land reported to have been found by Kerguelen, Cook in December 1776 reached the cluster of desolate islands now generally known by the name of the French explorer, and here, among many other kinds of birds, was a Sheathbill, which for a long while no one suspected to be otherwise than specifically identical with that of the western Antarctic Ocean; but, as will be seen, its distinctness has been subsequently admitted.
The Sheathbill, so soon as it was brought to the notice of naturalists, was recognized as belonging to a genus hitherto unknown, and J.
