596 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. —LIMICOL^. 



brown, and buff. Primaries fuscous, spotted with light brown on outer webs; secondaries 

 similar, but the markings becoming bars on both webs. Tail-feathers brownish-black, irmch 

 varied with shaft-lines, cross-bars, and edgings of buflf; crissum immaculate, like the abdomen. 

 Bill dark ; feet pale ; iris dark brown. Length about 7.00 ; wing 3.75 ; tail 1.75 ; tarsus 1.00 ; 

 middle toe and claw rather more. Europe, Asia, etc., recently imported and turned loose in 

 considerable numbers in the U. S., as in New England ; but its permanent naturalization is 

 stUl open tt) question. If one will compare this bird with the bob-white he will see how very 

 different is the Old World quail from our Ortyx, or any other birds of this country called 

 " quail; " but that it resembles Ortyx raore nearly than the European partridge, Perdix cinerea, 

 does ; so that, if we must borrow a name from any Old World birds for our species of Ortyx, 

 Lophortyx, Callipepla, etc., the term 'quail' is rather more appropriate than ' partridge.' 



VII. Order LIMICOL^: Shore-birds. 



Commonly known as the great " plover -snipe group," from the circumstance that the 

 pluvialine and scolopacine birds form the bulk of the order, which is practically equivalent to 

 the Charadriomorphce of Huxley. The species average of small size, with rounded or de- 

 pressed (never extremely compressed) body, and live in open places on the ground, usually by 

 the water's edge. With rare exceptions, the head is completely feathered ; the general ptery- 

 losis is of a nearly uniform pattern. The osteological characters are shared to some extent by 

 certain swimming birds, as GuUs and Auks ; the palate is schizognathous ; the nasal bones are 

 normally schizorhinal : the angle of the mandible is produced into a slender hooked process ; 

 the maxillo-palatiues are thin and scroll-like ; there are prominent basipterygoid processes ; 

 the rostral bones are slender, often much elongated ; the sternum is usually doubly, sometimes 

 singly, notched behind ; the carotids are double ; the syringeal muscles not more than one pair. 

 The physiological nature is prsecocial and ptilopsedic ; the eggs, averaging four, as a rule are 

 laid on the ground in a rude nest or bare depression; the young hatch clothed and able to run 

 about. The food is insects, worms, and other small or soft animals, either picked up from the 

 surface, or probed for in soft sand or mud, or forced to rise by stamping with the feet on the 

 ground ; from this latter circumstance, the birds havt! been named Calcatores (stampers). 

 With a few exceptions, the wing is long, thin, flat and pointed, with narrow^ stiff primaries, 

 rapidly graduated from 1st to 10th ; secondaries in turn rapidly lengthening from without 

 inward, the posterior border of the wing thus showing two salient points separated by a deep 

 emargination. The tail, never long, is commonly quite short, and has from 12 (the usual 

 number) up to 20 or even 26 feathers (in one remarkable group of Snipe). The legs are 

 commonly lengthened, sometimes extremely so ; rarely quite short, and are usually slender ; 

 they are indifferently scutellate or reticulate, or both. The feathers rarely reach the suffrago. 

 The toes are short (as compared with the case of Herons and Rails), the anterior usually semi- 

 palmate, frequently cleft to the base, only palmate in Becurvirostra and only lobate in Phalaro- 

 podidae. The hinder is always short and elevated, or absent. The length of the phalanges 

 of the anterior toes decreases from the basal to the penultimate. The lower part of the crus 

 never has feathers inserted upon it, though the leg may appear feathered to the suffrago, 

 owing to the length of the feathers. The bill varies much in length and contour, but is almost 

 always slender, contracted from the frontal region of the skuU, and is as long as, or much longer 

 than, the head, representing the " pressirostral " (pluvialine) and " longirostral " (scolopacine) 

 types. Furthermore, it is generally in large part, if not entirely, covered with softish skin, 

 often membranous and sensitive to the very tip,. and only rarely hard throughout. The nostril 

 is generally a slit in the membranous part, and probably never feathered. 



Most of the families of this order are well represented in this country, and will be found 

 fully characterized beyond. The position of Parridce is in question, and it probably belongs here 

 rather than among the families where it is ranged (beyond). There are several outlying or 



