LIMICOL.E: SHORE BIRDS. 763 



The osteological characters are shared to some extent by certain swimming birds, as Gulls 

 and Auks — in fact, the affinity between a Plover and a Gull is real, and so close that a 

 group called Laro-Limicolce has been named to include both, though it is not reasouably pos- 

 sible to bring them together in linear sequence in a book, without disarranging some other 

 sequences which must be preserved. Cervical vertebrae are 15 as a rule, witli 2 cervico-dorsals, 

 and 5 or 6 dorsals (exceptions in Ocdicnemidce and Jacanidce). Palate typically schizoo-na- 

 thous; nasal bones normally schizorliinal (but holorhinal in Pluvianus and Oedioiemince) ; 

 angle of mandible produced into a slender hooked process ; maxillo-palatines thin and scroll- 

 like; prominent basipteiygoids (wanting in Oedicneminte, Cursoriince, Chionididte, etc.); ros- 

 tral bones slender, often much elongated; sternum usually doubly, sometimes singly, notched 

 behind or notched and fenestrate; and this difference may be only a generic character, as 

 it is presented by certain true Snipes of very close relations to one another in all other re- 

 spects; the furculum deveh>ps a hypocleidiuin ; carotids double ; syringeal muscles not more 

 than one pair. The physiological nature is prsecocial and ptilopaidic (or dasypaedic, as it 

 is also called), tnr thi- young hatch clothed and able to run about almost immediately, being 

 quite as nidifugous as chicks of gallinaceous birds; and in this respect the Limicolee differ 

 from all those Waders wliich compose the order Herodiones. The eggs are laid as a rule 

 in a rude nc>t or bare depression, and are from 2 to 4 in number, mostly 4, well marked all 

 over OH a uon-cummittal ground-color (white only in Dromas ardeola). 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 have been named Ccdccttores (Stampers). With a few exceptions, 

 the wing is long, thin, flat, and pointed, with narrow stiff primaries, rapidly graduated 

 from 1st to lUth ; secondaries in turn rapidly lengthening from without inward, the posterior 

 border of the wing thus showing two salient points separated by a deep emarginaliou. The 

 tail, never long, is commonly quite short, and has from 12 (the usual number) up to 20 nr 

 even 2(5 feathers (in one remarkable group of Snipe). The legs are commonly lengthened, 

 sometimes extremely so, as in the Stilts (Himantopus)] rarely quite short, and are usually 

 slender; they are indifferently scutellate or reticulate, or partly both. Tlie toes are generally 

 short (as compared with the case of Herons and Hails), the anterior usually semipalmate, fre- 

 quently cleft to the base, only mucii lengthened in JucanidfC, only palmate in Hecuni rostra, 

 and only lobate in PJicdaropodida. The hinder is always shrjrt and elevated, or absent; when 

 present, the hallux is supplied by its proper flexor longus hallucis, the flexor digitorum per- 

 forans going by 3 slips to the front toes ; but their tendons are connected by a vinculum, and 

 the arrangement is thus desmopelmous, as usual in non-|)asserine birds witii 4 toes. The 

 length of phalanges of anterior toes decreases from basal t(» penultimate. Tiie lower part of 

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

 owing to length of superincumbent feathers. The bill varies mudi in length and contour, but 

 is almost always slender, abruptly contracted from frontal region of skull, ami usually as long 

 as, if not much longer than, the head, representing the " pressirostral " (pluvialine) and " lon- 

 girostral " (scolopacine) ty])('S. In the former of these types, represented by any Plover, the 

 base of the bill is small and soft, with slmrt nasal grooves, beyond which it is enhirged into a 

 well-marked dertrum or hard, horny part; in the latter type, a.s represented by any Snipe or 

 Sandpiper, it is soft and .sensitive to the very tip, with long nasal grooves. Asidi- from these 

 predominant cases of the ChnradriidfC and Scoloimcidn' — those two large families which make 

 up most of the order, the bill assumes special shapes in each of the small families I>romadid<c, 

 Glareolidrr, H(Cmatopodid(C, Eecurriru.stridtc, Cliionididti; ThiutKonjthidir. The nostril is 

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



Tlie Liiiiicoke iiro among the most cosmopolitan orders of birds, being represented wher- 

 ever in the world any birds can live; some of its members, like the Turnstone and Hiack- 



