68 BRITISH SEA BIRDS. 



As soon, however, as the duties of the year are 

 over great numbers of species resort to the sea 

 coasts, where, in all districts suited to their require- 

 ments, they form one of the most characteristic 

 avine features. It is amongst birds of this order 

 that the habit of migration is exceptionally pro- 

 nounced, some species journeying every year many 

 thousands of miles between their summer haunts, 

 or breeding grounds, and their winter homes, or 

 centres of dispersal. In the present group of birds 

 the wings are generally long and pointed, a form 

 best adapted for prolonged and rapid flight, whilst 

 the legs are usually long in some species, as, for 

 instance, the Black-winged Stilt, exceptionally so- 

 enabling the birds to wade through shallows and 

 over soft mud and ooze. In some species the feet 

 are semi-webbed, as in the Avocets, in others they 

 are lobed, as in the Phalaropes. The bill varies to 

 an astonishing degree amongst birds of this class, 

 and seems specially modified to meet the varying 

 methods by which food is obtained. Thus we have 

 presented to us the decurved bill of the Curlew 

 type, the recurved bill, characteristic amongst others 

 of the Avocet or the Godwits, the nearly straight 

 bill of such forms as the Oyster-catcher and the 

 Phalarope, hard and chisel-like in the former, and 

 finely pointed in the latter ; then, again, the bill in 

 many species is hard and horny, in others it is 

 acutely sensitive, full of delicate nerves, as in the 

 Snipes and many others. The bill of the typical 



