Birds 69 



white. The Mountain Plover (Podasocys or Eupoda montana of 

 J. K. Townsend) has no black patches or bands on the breast; 

 the toes are very short. It is or was common on the plains, and 

 goes up to about 8,000 feet in the mountains. The Killdeer 

 (Oxyechus vociferus), well named by Linnaeus, is well known to 

 all who have been about the State. It has a habit of running in 

 the road ahead of travellers, or did so until the latter took to 

 driving furiously in automobiles. The common name is an attempt 

 to imitate its cry, which has been rendered kill-dee', kill-dee', 

 by Vernon Bailey. It is a pretty bird, the head and chest marked 

 with black and white. The Semipalmated Plover, JEgialitis or 

 Charadrius semipalmatus, is much smaller, and has only one black 

 band across the upper part of the breast, the killdeer having two. 



It is customary to classify all the above birds as Water Birds, 

 as against the Orders of Land Birds which follow. In a general 

 way the distinction is valid, but there are exceptions. Thus 

 among the "Land Birds" the Dipper has aquatic habits, and the 

 "Water Bird" Bartramia is thoroughly terrestrial. The Orders 

 of Land Birds are distinguished by easily recognizable characters. 

 If the bill is strongly hooked, and the toes are two in front and 

 two behind, the bird is a parrot (Psittaci). The hawks and owls, 

 also with hooked bill, have the toes three in front and one behind. 

 They were formerly classed together under the name Raptores, 

 but are now separated into Accipitres (hawks and eagles) and 

 Striges (owls), as they have important anatomical differences. 

 The pigeons (Columbae) do not have a strongly hooked bill, but 

 they agree with the orders just listed, and differ from those which 

 follow, in having a cere of soft, swollen skin at the base of the 

 mandibles. Structurally, the pigeons are more related to some of 

 the water birds than to the other land birds, and the owls are more 

 related to the kingfishers and humming-birds than to the hawks. 



Of the orders without a cere, the Gallinae (grouse, pheasants, 

 domestic fowl, etc.) are known by the hind toe being compara- 

 tively small and placed higher than the others, at least in the 

 Colorado species. The Macrochires appear to us composite, in- 

 cluding the goatsuckers, whip-poor-wills and swifts, with short 

 broad bills; and the humming-birds, with long slender bills.* The 



*Shufeldt, as long ago as 1889, showed that the osteology of the swifts was exceedingly 

 different from that of the humming-birds. 



