346 PECTORAL SANDPIPER. 



This family, wliicli we shall call Limicolce or Scolopacidce, is strictlj 

 natural, especially since we have still farthei" reformed it by withdraw- 

 ing the genus Himantopus, with which we had encumbered it in our 

 Synopsis. The family now comprises the six genera Numenius, Trivga, 

 Totanus, Limosa, Scolopax, and Rhynchcea, all possessing the most 

 marked affinity in form and habits. 



The Scolopacidce have either a moderate or generally a long bill, 

 slender, feeble, and extremely soft, being partially or entirely covered 

 with a nervous and sensitive skin : it is nearly cylindrical, and mostly 

 obtuse at the point. Their face is completely feathered, and their neck 

 of a moderate length and size. The feet, though rather long, are 

 moderate and quite slender ; the tarsus is scutellated : but the chief 

 character which, combined with the bill, will always distinguish thorn 

 from the allied families, consists in the hind toe, which is short, slender, 

 articulated high up on the tarsus, and the tip hardly touching the 

 ground : in some quite typical species this toe is entirely wanting, and 

 this fact corroborates what we have so often repeated in our writings, 

 that the mode of insertion, or use made of this toe is of more importance 

 than its being absent or present. In all the Limicolce the wings are 

 elongated, falciform, acute and tuberculated ; and the tail rather short. 



The females are generally larger than the males, but luckily for natu- 

 ralists, similar to them in color. I say luckily, for as the young differ 

 greatly from the adults, and as the moult which takes place twice a year 

 produces additional changes in the confused plumage of most of these 

 birds, sexual diversity, if it existed, would render the species still more 

 difficult to determine. 



All the Scolopacidce inhabit marshy, muddy places, and around 

 waters ; and never alight on trees. On the ground they run swiftly. 

 Their food consists of insects, worms, mollusca, and other aquatic ani- 

 mals, which they seek in the mud, feeling and knowing where to seize 

 their prey without seeing it, by means of the delicacy of touch of their 

 bill. They are monogamous ; breed on the ground in grassy marshes, 

 or on the sand ; and lay mostly four pyriform eggs, both parents sittinjx 

 upon them, and afterwards attending their young with care, thougii 

 these latter leave the nest, run about, and pick up food as soon as 

 hatched. All these habits contrast strongly with those of the Ibis, which 

 can only be forced into this family on account of the softness of the 

 bill, and its great similarity to that of the Curlews. 



Our genus Tringa is much more extensive than that of most modern, 

 though much less so than that of former writers, for we arrange in it all 

 the Scolopacidce, whose bill, short, or moderately so, straight or slightly 

 curved, is soft or flexible for its whole length, and with the point smooth, 

 depressed, somewhat dilated and obtuse ; not taking into consideration 

 the feet, especially the hind toe, which we think in this case hardly 



