Shore-bird Shooting 319 



ward as in the curlews; it may be broad and 

 flattened at the point as in the spoon-billed 

 sandpiper, or with the point bent sideways at an 

 angle as in the crook-billed plover — an inhab- 

 itant of New Zealand. We find it pigeon-like in 

 the plovers, rather short and pointed in the 

 turnstones, long and wedge-shaped in the oyster- 

 catchers, and with a heavy sheath at base in the 

 sheath-bills; but always its shape is that best 

 fitted to obtain the food on which the bird 

 subsists. 



Seven families are found in North America, 

 the phalaropes [P halaropodidce), avocets and stilts 

 {Recurvirostrido'), snipes and sandpipers {Scolo- 

 pacidcE), plovers [Charadriidce), surf -birds and 

 turnstones {AphrizidcE), oyster-catchers {Hcsma- 

 topodidcr), and jacanas {Jacanidcs). 



THE PHALAROHES 



(^Phalaropodidce) 



The phalarope family contains only three 

 species of small birds, two of which breed in the 

 far North and occur throughout most of the north- 

 ern hemisphere in migration, while the third is 

 confined in the breeding season to the interior 

 of North America. They differ from the other 

 families of the order by combining a bill, slender 

 and as long as the head, a long neck, breast 

 feathers compact and duck-like, legs flattened 



