BILL OF THE AVOCET. 221 



The majority of the group inhabit countries which 

 are not liable to be parched by the sun, or they 

 resort to such countries in the hot season ; for, though 

 many of them seek their food chiefly upon sandy or 

 gravelly surfaces, they all seek it near the waters ; 

 and in the winter season they either resort to the 

 shores of the sea, or migrate to climates nearer the 

 equator. 



Many of them seek their food by boring into the 

 ooze and sludge, and in proportion as they have this 

 habit more, their bills are longer, straighter, and more 

 soft, flexible, and sentient. They are chiefly night or 

 twilight feeders, because the ground animals of marshy 

 and humid places come abroad then, but retreat and 

 are still during the day. The time of their feeding 

 thus renders the sentient bill of more avail to them 

 than a hard one would be. During summer, when 

 food is plentiful, and vegetation rank on the marshy 

 grounds, one may traverse these the whole day with- 

 out seeing a bird, or even hearing a note or a rustle ; 

 but as night sets in, they make the wilds alive with 

 whistling and screaming. The bills of snipes and 



woodcocks may be considered as typical of this por- 

 tion of the group. The avocets, which have the 

 most singular bills of the whole, are more of day 



