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242 CHARADRIID@H, PLOVER. ty 
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ally of the mesozoic Archewopteryx. Some gigantic extinct birds belong in the 
neighborhood of the rails and coots. Decidedly rail-like and better known birds 
are the jacanas, Parride, noted for the length of the toes, and especially of the 
claws; they have a sharp spur on the wing. There are less than 12 species, usually 
referred to several genera, of various parts of the world. Finally, the sun-birds, 
Heliornithide, are a small but remarkable family of one or two genera and about 
four species of tropical America, Africa, and southern Asia. They have been 
classed, on account of their lobate feet and a certain general resemblance, with the ; 
grebes ; but the feet are like those of coots, and their whole structure shows that they 
belong with the ralliform birds. This completes an enumeration of the Alectorides. 
Suborder LIMICOL4. Shore Birds. (See p. 239.) 
Family CHARADRIIDA. Plover. 
This is a large and important family of nearly a hundred species, of all parts of 
the world. Its limits are not settled, there being a few forms sometimes referred 
here, sometimes made the types of distinct families. I exclude from it the genera 
Thinocorus, Attagis, and Chionis, noted on a preceding page. The glareoles 
(Glareoline if not Glareolide) are a remarkable Old World form, like long-legged 
swallows, with a cuckoo’s bill; the tail is forked ; there are four toes; the wings are 
extremely long and pointed ; the tarsi are scutellate; the middle claw denticulate. 
The coursers, Cursoriince, are another Old World type, near the bustards, of one 
or two genera and less than ten species. In both of these the gape of the mouth is 
longer than in the true plovers; the hind toe, as usual for this family, is absent in 
the coursers. The thick-knees, @dicnemine, are truly plover-like birds, with one 
exception belonging to the Old World, comprising about eight species of the genera 
Gidicnemus and Esacus. All the remaining pluvialine birds appear to fall in the 
Subfamily CHARADRIINA?. True Plover. 
Toes generally three, the hinder absent (excepting, among our forms, gen. 189, 
193) ; tarsus reticulate, longer than the middle toe; toes with a basal web; tibize 
naked below. Bill of moderate length, much shorter or not longer than the head, 
shaped somewhat like that of a pigeon, with a convex horny terminal portion, con- 
tracted behind this; the nasal fosse rather short and wide, filled with soft skin in 
which the nostrils open as a slit, not basal, and perforate. Gape very short, reaching 
little beyond base of culmen. Wings long and pointed, reaching, when folded, to or 
beyond the end of the tail, and sometimes spurred; crissal feathers long and full; 
tail short, generally nearly even and of 12 feathers; body plump; neck short and 
thick ; head large, globose, sloping rapidly to the small base of the bill, usually 
fully feathered. Size moderate or small. 
Our species (excepting Aphriza, if really belonging here) are very closely related, 
and will be readily recognized by the foregoing characters. There are in all perhaps 
sixty species. The most singular of them is the Anarhynchus frontalis, in which 
the bill is bent sideways. Thinornis zelandie of New Zealand, Phegornis mitchellit 
and Oreophilus totanirostris of Chili, are peculiar forms. Species of Chettusia, 
Lobivanellus, and Hoplopterus have fleshy wattles, or a tubercle, often developed into 
a spine, on the wing, or both; some of these, and others, are crested. These are 
(Nore. The genus Grus, inadvertently numbered 223 in the Key, will be found next after genus 238.] 
