266 A VES ORDER CHARADRIIFORMES. 



oyster-catchers .among the plovers. The nest is a rough affair, placed in a 

 hole behind or between rocks, sometimes an old burrow of a petrel being used 

 and enlarged by the sheath bill. Enough has been said to show that the 

 sheathbill is a very remarkable form of bird. Its inquisitiveness and tame- 

 ness reminds us of the weka rails, while its habit of devouring eggs is also 

 one of the bad propensities of the larger rails. In some other respects, as 

 Mr. Eaton remarks, it resembles a ptarmigan, and that it is a bird of con- 

 siderable power of flight is proved by a specimen in the British Museum, 

 which was shot whilst flying round a ship 200 miles from land. 



These birds are only found on the Andes and in the southern portion of 



South America, from Argentina to Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands 



on the east, and from Chili to Ecuador on the west. There 



The Seed Snipes, are but two genera, Attacjis and Thinocorus, the former birds 



Sub-order being as large as grouse, the latter of the size of a quail. 



Attaffidex, Despite their game-like plumage, they are allied to the 



plovers, though they differ from these in having a palate 



much like that of a passerine bird, while the nostrils are holorhinal, not 



schizorhinal. The nest is a mere depression in the ground, sometimes lined 



with a few blades of grass, and the eggs are pale stone-colour, very thickly 



speckled with light and dark brown. 



This is a very large group, and contains all the plovers, snipes, and 



sandpipers. The palate throughout is cleft or schizognathous, the nostrils 



split or schizorhinal, basipterygoid processes are present, 



The Plovers. and the spinal feather tract is forked on the upper back. 



Sub-order The eggs are nearly always pear-shaped, four in number, 



Charadrii. and are deposited point to point. The plovers and snipes 

 form one large family, Charadriidce, but there are no less than 

 ten sub-families. 



These are small Arctic birds, which exhibit certain grebe -like characters, 



for they have the toes lobed, swim well, and have also a serrated edge to the 



hinder margin of the planti tarsi) the hind portion of the 



The exposed leg being exactly as in the grebes. The phalaropes are 



Phalaropes. likewise remarkable for their bright coloration, in which the 



Sub-family female excels the male, and is the handsomer bird of the 



Phalaropincn. two ; she is also larger than the male, and does all the court- 

 ing. There are three genera of phalaropes, each containing 

 a single species Crymophil-us, with the grey phalarope (C. fulicarius) ; 

 Phalaropus, with the red-necked phalarope (P. hyperboreus) ; and Steyanopus, 

 with Wilson's phalarope (S. tricolor), as the representatives of the three 

 respective genera. The two former breed in the Arctic regions of both 

 hemispheres, but Wilson's phalarope inhabits temperate North America. 

 All of them migrate far south in winter, and are found off' the coasts of South 

 America as well as in the Indian and Australian seas. 



Some of the details of the nesting habits of phalaropes, as observed by Mr. 

 E, W. Nelson in Alaska, are very amusing. Speaking of the red-necked 

 phalarope (P. hyperboreiis), he remarks : " As the season comes on, when the 

 flames of love mount high, the dull-coloured males move about the pool, 

 apparently heedless of the surrounding fair ones. Such stoical indifference 

 usually appears too much for the feelings of some of the latter to bear. A 

 female coyly glides close to him and bows her head in pretty submissive- 

 ness, but he turns away, picks at a bit of food, and moves off ; she follows, 

 and he quickens his speed, but in vain ; he is her choice, and she proudly 



