FAMILY SCOLOPACID^E. 93 



of W. of Scotland," pp. 269-70, to which the reader is referred for some good 

 field-notes) only makes an attempt when it can " see day-light " between rock and 

 shell, sufficient to admit suddenly the point of the powerful chisel bill. I have 

 never been near enough to observe this. The Oyster- Catcher would probably be 

 an attractive and useful inhabitant of a walled garden : for the table it is useless, 

 and ought never to be shot, except by anyone who wants a specimen. 



I have never been able to satisfy myself as to which sex incubates, never 

 having shot a bird off a nest, nor, I may add, tried to. Probably both take a 

 share, as is common amongst the Order. Howard Saunders (Yarrell, iii, 296) 

 describes the female as doing the sitting, while the male keeps guard, and no 

 doubt so accurate a writer has evidence, from bare spots on the breasts of skins, 

 etc., for this statement. But even in that case, the male would probably relieve 

 the female at meal-times. 



FAMILY SCOLOPACIDJB. 



T 7BRY difficult to characterize according to the present arrangement. A large 

 V g rou P f Limicolines with lobed (PhalaropusJ , webbed (Recurvirostra, etc.}, 

 or unwebbed feet (Scolopax). Bill slender, used for probing, scooping (Recurvirostra) 

 or picking ; bill schizorhinal (i.e., consisting of three slender bony bars, united at 

 the base and tip only). The tip of the bill usually highly endued with nerves, 

 which open in hexagonal pits in the bone, and are only covered by a thin flexible 

 horn sheathing. This will be further noticed when describing the Snipe, in which 

 the arrangement reaches its extreme development, and is an apparatus for detecting 

 the presence of living and moving organisms in the mud or moist soil, in which 

 the bill is probing for food. 



The principal groups are : 



i. The PHALAROPES, which have membranous lobes on the sides of the toes, 

 like those of the Coot; these "feather," to use a rowing term, on the forward 

 stroke, and offer resistance to the water on the backward stroke of the feet. 



2. THE SNIPES (Scolopaxj ', which have no trace of webs between the toes ; 

 large-eyed nocturnal feeders, with acutely sensory bills. 



