106 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



We mentioned above that the present family resembles the Charadriidae as to the 

 muscular arrangement, but we should have qualified the statement in regard to the 

 muscles of the legs by saying that the myological formula is reversed in the two fami- 

 lies, that is to say, that while in the plovers ABXY is the rule, and AXY the excep- 

 tion, so is among the snipes the latter combination the usual one, while only few have 

 all four muscles. Noticeable among the snipes having this more generalized muscular 

 arrangement are the curlews, a small group, the external characters of which are 

 alone sufficient to warrant us in assigning them a somewhat separate position; for the 

 Nurneniinae are characterized by a very long and strongly decurved bill, and by 

 having the tarsus entirely reticulate, or scutellate only for the lower half of the front. 



FIG. 50. Numenius arquatus, curlew. 



As an additional character may be quoted their comparatively short tongue. The 

 tarsus is totally reticulate in the Asiatic genus, Ibidorhyncha, in which, besides, the 

 hind toe is absent, thus to a certain degree justifying the saying that it is a snipe with 

 the bill of an ibis and the feet of a plover. Of this very remarkable form only 

 one species, the red-billed curlew (I. struthersii), is known. It was originally obtained 

 in the Himmalehs, but recent explorations in central Asia have shown that it inhabits 

 sandy river banks from Pekin in the east to Turkestan, or perhaps the Kirghis steppes 

 in the west. Its coloration is entirely different from that of the curlews of the genus 

 Niimenius, which are of a more or less rusty gray with dusky spots all over, while in 

 Ibidorhyncha the back is olive colored, the under side pure white, with the top of 



