94 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



tigations it is clear that they have strong affinities to Glareola and other Charadroid 

 Grallas. In fact, they incline toward the latter as does Chionis toward the gulls. 

 The most noteworthy peculiarity of their structure is the formation of the palate, 

 which is of a " spuriously aegithognathous nature," on account of the broad, anteriorly 

 rounded vomer, and the manner in which the nasal cartilages are there connected, as 

 originally shown by Professor Parker. 



The habits of the Thinocoridae are very little known, and what we know consists 

 chiefly of what Darwin and nearly forty years after Mr. Durnford have ascer- 

 tained and published concerning the ' gachita,' as Thinocorus rumicivorus is called in 

 Buenos Ayres, according to Mr. Hudson. The former says : " This very singular 

 bird, which in its habits and appearance partakes of the character both of a wader 

 and one of the Gallinaceous order, is found wherever there are sterile plains, or open, 

 dry pasture land, in southern South America. Upon being approached they lie close, 

 and then are very difficult to be distinguished from the ground. When feeding they 

 walk rather slowly, with their legs wide apart. They dust themselves in roads and 

 sandy places." He goes on, showing that in all these respects of habit and external 

 appearance the bird resembles a quail. "But," he continues, "directly the bird is 

 seen flying, one's opinion is changed ; the long, pointed wings, so different from those 

 in the gallinaceous order, the high, irregular flight, and plaintive cry uttered at the 

 moment of rising, recall the idea of a snipe. The sportsmen of the 'Beagle' unani- 

 mously called it the 'short-billed snipe." Mr. Durnford ascertained that they breed 

 in Patagonia and visit Buenos Ayres in winter [May to September], sometimes in 

 large flocks. He lays especial stress upon this similarity in habits to the quails and 

 sand-pipers. "When disturbed," he says, "they fly round, uttering a low whistle, 

 and invariably alight head to wind. They remind me of flocks of Calidris arenaria 

 (the sanderling) as they stand motionless on the ground." During his journey in 

 central Patagonia (1877-78), he was able to discover its breeding habits, of which he 

 gives the following account : " I took eggs at the end of October ; and the young- 

 were running in the middle of November : but this species probably has two or more 

 broods in the season ; for I found chicks in March. The nest is a slight depression 

 in the ground, sometimes lined with a few blades of grass ; and before leaving it 

 the old bird covers up the eggs with little pieces of stick. The eggs are pale stone 

 ground-color, very thickly speckled with light and dark chocolate markings. The 

 chick is finely mottled all over with light and dark brown." 



As far as species and individuals are concerned, the super-family now following, the 

 SCOLOPACOIDE./E, makes up the bulk of the present order. The group is a rather 

 well circumscribed one, though a few forms are still in dispute, since some authors, 

 following Huxley and Forbes, are inclined to exclude the bustards and thick-knees as 

 being holorhinal. The question is one of the many in systematic ornithology which 

 cannot be settled at present, and the most judicious course is, probably, to establish a 

 separate super-family for the bustards, equivalent to those of the snipes and the cranes. 

 As the arrangement now is, the characters defining the groups are hardly absolutely 

 trenchant, but may be said in general to be the presence of narrow and prominent basi- 

 pterygoid processes and the slender and abruptly recurved process of the angle of the 

 mandible in the Scolopacoideae. They are all schizorhinal, except the Otididoe and 

 (Edienemidse. The myological formula of the schizorhinal forms is ABXY or AXY ; 

 that of the holorhinal members, ABXY or BXY. The bill is elongated and compara- 

 tively slender. The ratio of the phalanges of the toes is normal, that is, they diminish 



