BEACH BIRDS. 



Order Limicolce. The Shore Birds. 



NATURE has been so lavish to us of North America in her 

 supply of shore birds or Limicolae, and they form so im- 

 portant a portion of our avi-fauna, that it may be well to preface 

 the general account of this order here given, by a short descriptive 

 scheme as follows : 



Tibia more or less naked below (sometimes very slightly) ; legs, 

 and usually neck also, elongated ; hind toe free and elevated, often 

 wanting. Head globose, abruptly sloping to the base of the bill, 

 completely feathered ; gape short ; bill weak, flexible, more or less 

 soft-skinned, and therefore sensitive, blunt at tip, without hard cut- 

 ting edges — fitted for probing in the mud ; nostrils slit-like, sur- 

 rounded by soft skin, never feathered ; body never strongly com- 

 pressed or depressed ; nature precocial. Birds of medium or small 

 size, more or less aquatic ; found in most regions ; very abundant 

 in America. 



Special Characteristics : I. Toes lobate ; tarsus notably 

 compressed, Phala?'opodidcB. II. Toes not lobate ; tarsus not 

 specially compressed. Legs exceedingly long ; tarsus as long as 

 tail ; bill much longer than head, slender, acute, and curved up- 

 wards ; feet four-toed and palmate, or three-toed and semipalmate ; 

 Recurvirostridce. Bill usually shorter than head, pigeon-like ; the 

 broad soft base separated by a constriction from the hard tip ; head 

 subglobose, on a short neck ; tarsus reticulate ; toes three (except 

 in Squatarold) ; CharadriidcB. Bill usually longer than head, 

 mostly grooved, but not constricted, softish to its tip ; tarsus 

 scutellate ; toes four in number (except in Calidris) ; Scolopa- 

 cidcp.. Not as above; bill hard, either compressed and truncate 

 or acute; feet four-toed and cleft, or three-toed and semi- 

 palmate ; Hamatopodzdce. 



