^34 ^^- HANS GADOW, 



right nostril, and still more the groove, are perceptibly slanting towards 

 the right, as can be ascertained, when viewed from the dorsal side. 

 Near the end of the left nasal groove, or about the region whence 

 the bill turns towards the right side, the horny sheath is slightly 

 thickened. 



Thls bird lives on the seashore or in half dry riverbeds, where 

 it pokes under pebbles and larger stones to extract small worras, 

 insects and crustacea from their hiding places. It seems to use its 

 longish bill somewhat like a lever and probe combined. That its bill 

 is subjected to mechanical strain is clearly indicated by the edges 

 which are turned inwards and by the apparent absence of tactile 

 corpuscles in the uniformly smooth and eutirely horny rhamphotheca. 



As Professor Newton has shown (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870, p. 673) 

 the very young birds show already the curve of the bill in a marked 

 degree, The specimen figured, was hardly more than three days old, 

 the cutting edges of the right side are not yet turned inwards, but 

 the Position of the nostrils and their grooves is already asymmetrical. 



The very early repetition of the peculiarity of this bill in young 

 birds, most probably already beginning in the embryo, and the fact 

 that only rightsided deviation is known , seem to indicate that this 

 has become a very settled feature. This unique anomalous formation 

 of the bill is combined with a most striking asymmetry of the colo- 

 ration of the bird. Whilst young specimens, and the adult in winter 

 plumage, possess only a grey patch on each side of the neck, the rest 

 of the neck and underparts being white, the adult in breeding plu- 

 mage have a black collar, (so common amongst Charadriidae) but 

 the breadth of the black collar is nearly double on the left side to 

 what it is on the right. This point has been noticed by various orni- 

 thologists (although the sides have been mixed , and in Seebohm's 

 „Charadriidae" the woodcut has through inadvertence of the artist 

 reversed the picture) and has by some been referred to natural selec- 

 tion. The broader half of the band is on the side which is exposed 

 to view, when the bird puts its bill under a stone, which of course 

 must be on the right side of the bird owing to the curvature of the 

 bill. If the stone is big, the right side of the bird is hiddeo, and 

 therefore need not be ornamented or be protected by a conspicuously 

 black patch. What would be the use of such a mark unless the same 

 be Seen? On the other band, assuming this patch to be merely orna- 

 mental, and therefore occasionally a source of danger and not pro- 

 tective, it might be argued that this bird, which spends a considerable 



