PLOVER 733 
colour is relieved by markings of black and white.1 This probably 
belongs to the small section generally known as COURSERS, Cursorius, 
allied to which are the curious PRATINCOLES, also peculiar to the 
Old World, while the genera Thinocorys and Attagis form an outlying 
group peculiar to South America, that is by some systematists 
regarded as a separate Family “ Thinocoridx,” near which are often 
placed the singular SHEATHBILLS. By most authorities the Stone- 
CURLEWS, the OYSTER-CATCHERS and TURNSTONES are also re- 
garded as belonging to the Family Charadriidx, and some would 
add the AVosETS and STILTS, among which the CRAB-PLOVER or 
“Cavalier,” Dromas ardeola—a form that has been bandied about 
from one Family and even Order to another—should possibly find 
its place. 
Though the various forms here spoken of as Plovers are closely 
allied, they must be regarded as constituting a somewhat indefinite 
group, for no very strong line of demarcation can be drawn be- 
tween them and the SANDPIPERS and SNIPES. United, however, 
with both of the latter, under the name of LIMICOL&, after the 
method approved by recent systematists, the whole form an 
assemblage the compactness of which no observant ornithologist 
can hesitate to admit, even if he be not inclined to treat as its 
nearest relations the BUSTARDS on the one hand and the “GAvIa” 
on the other.? 
1 The elder Geoffroy-St. Hilaire (Mém. du Mus. xv. pp. 466, 467) in 1827 
was apparently the first to identify this bird with the tpoxédos of Herodotus (cf. 
HuMMING-BIRD, p. 442, note 2), and did so from having actually seen it enter 
the Crocodile’s mouth, while his testimony is confirmed by the experience of 
Dr. A. E. Brehm, who says (Thierleben, Vogel, ed. 2, iii. p. 216) that he had 
repeatedly seen it thus act. In the face of the positive assurance of two such com- 
petent witnesses it would be rash to conclude that another observer, who seems 
to be no ornithologist, is right in attributing (Ibis, 1893, p. 277) the part of the 
“‘Crocodile-bird” to Hoplopterus spinosus (LAPWING), though Dr. A. L. Adams 
(Tbis, 1864, p. 29) and Mr. A. C. Smith (Attractions of the Nile, ii. pp. 255, 
256)—neither of whom had witnessed the feat— had already made the same 
suggestion. However, other ornithological observers of equal, if not sreater 
repute, such as Mr. E. C. Taylor (Ibis, 1859, p. 52; 1867, p. 68), Von Heuglin 
(Orn. Nord-ost Afrika’s, pp. 978, 979), and M. d’Aubusson (Echassiers d’ Egypte, 
pp- 16-18), without professing personal experience, hold to Pluvianus rather 
than Hoplopterus being the reptile’s benefactor, and so the matter must be left, 
though the balance of scientific opinion is sufficiently declared. 
2 In this connexion it is necessary to mention Mr. Seebohm’s lavishly illus- 
trated Geographical Distribution of the Family Charadriidex (4to, London: without 
date, but published in 1887), under which term he comprises all the ordinary 
Plovers, Sandpipers and Snipes, but excludes Aétagis, Chionis, Dromas and 
Thinocorys. It would be out of place here to dwell upon his speculations, and 
it is enough to state his arrangement of the forms he includes. Professing to 
despise ‘‘structural characters,” upon them he yet chiefly grounds nearly all 
his groups, but chooses characters which most taxonomers regard as of minor 
