Song Birds and Water Fowl 
speaking of this most prominent feature of many 
of the water fowl, I must not fail to mention 
the most singular of all, the long-billed curlew, 
or ‘‘sickle-bill,’’ with a bill sometimes eight 
inches long, and curved downward, the reverse 
of the avocet. 
Sandpipers as a class have neutral colors, but 
there is an occasional exception to this, as in 
the red- backed sandpiper; while the red- 
breasted, or ‘‘robin snipe,’’ is a large and 
handsome species, a genuine water robin. Our 
tiniest swimmer is the little phalarope, its body 
not so large as that of the hermit thrush, and 
one species is handsomely costumed in dark 
wine-color, white and black. 
The ‘‘sea-parrot’’ shows another distinct 
type, and has a parrot-shaped bill, but is not so 
ungainly as its namesake on land. This comes 
down from the North in winter as far as Long 
Island Sound. An allied species, called the 
sea-dove, has plumage suggestive of our familiar 
little snow-bird—dark-blue above and on breast, 
passing abruptly into white beneath. 
We have two prominent and _ interesting 
groups of water birds among us, belonging, as 
we shall see hereafter, to the ‘‘marsh group’’— 
herons, which resort to waoded swamps, either 
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