CHAPTER XIX 



THE PLOVERS, SANDPIPERS, SNIPE, JACANAS, AND GULLS 

 ORDERS LIMICOL/E AND GAVI/E 



THE birds named above, together with certain allied forms, are all closely con- 

 nected, but may be conveniently divided into two orders, of which the second is 

 represented by the gulls and terns. Both groups agree with those treated of in the 

 immediately preceding chapters in having cleft (schizognathous) palates, and their 

 young covered with down and active at birth. They differ, however, from all the 

 preceding groups of birds in that the humerus (as shown in the figure on p. 1467 of 

 the third volume) is furnished with a projecting (ectepicondylar) process on the 

 outer side of its lower extremity; while they are also characterized by the vertebrae of 

 the back having their articular surfaces of a more or less cup and ball type, instead 

 of saddle shaped. In all of them the nasal apertures in the skull are slit-like (schiz- 

 orhinal),* and in all the oil gland is tufted, while on the upper back the spinal tract 

 of feathers is forked. The whole group is a very extensive one, including consider- 

 ably over three hundred species. 



The plovers, snipe, sandpipers, coursers, etc., collectively constitut- 

 ing the order Limicolae, are long-legged, and frequently long-billed, 

 birds, characterized by the angle of the lower jaw being produced back- 

 ward and recurved, by the very general presence of basipterygoid processes on the 

 rostrum of the skull, and by the feet being but seldom completely webbed, as well 

 as by the absence of a certain feature connected with the bones of the wing which 

 is characteristic of the gulls, and will be alluded to under that heading, f As a rule 

 the breastbone has two notches on its hinder border, and in some cases the third 

 toe is serrated, while the third and fourth toes may be connected for some distance 

 by a web, or all three front toes may have lobe-like expansions, or even a web. In 

 all cases the first toe is small, and it may be elevated above the plane of the others, 

 or even wanting. The wings are relatively long and pointed, with ten primary 

 quills; while the tail is short, with the number of feathers variable. As a rule these 

 birds undergo an autumnal and a spring molt; the young birds in their first plum- 

 age more or less closely resembling the adults in their summer dress. In their first 

 autumn, the young begin to change into the second plumage, differing very little 

 from the winter dress of the adults; the change taking place, however, not by a molt, 

 but by an actual alteration in the color of the feathers themselves although a few 

 battered feathers may be replaced. In the succeeding spring these immature birds 

 assume the bright summer plumage of the adults, although they differ from the 

 latter in having brighter wing coverts; these feathers being only changed by the 



* Except in the black-backed courser (Pluvianus). 



t Mr. Beddard (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1890, p. 339) has formulated certain characteristics by which the skulls of the 

 group can be defined from those of the cranes and gulls, but they are too abstruse to be quoted here. 



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