Feet webbed 



SANDPIPERS. 107 



head, face, and throat black, as is also a band aci-oss the breast ; bill and feet vivid 

 red. The arctogaean genus (Numenms), consists of four-toed curlews, the migratory 

 habits, extreme shyness, and culinary excellency of which are well known to the 

 sportsman. They range in size from that of the domestic fowl to that of the wood- 

 cock. Five species are enumerated as belonging to North America, among these the 

 curious JV. tahitensiS) in which the shafts of the thigh-feathers are prolonged into thin 

 and long, glossy bristles. It inhabits especially the Pacific islands, and has been taken 

 twice in Alaska as an accidental straggler. 



In the following sub-family, the Recurvirostrina3, the length of bill and feet, espe- 

 cially that of the latter, is carried to an extreme, but, unlike the curlews, the bill is 

 either straight or bent upwai'ds, and in both cases very much pointed. Those with 

 straight bills are called stilts ; those with the beak recurved, avocets. The tarsus is 

 covered in front by reticulate scales. They are tropical or subtropical in their distri- 

 bution. The species are not numerous and are referable to three genera, the distin- 

 guishing characters of which Mr. Seebohm has tabulated in the following ingenuous 

 and laconic way : 



.. { *S**, 



Himantopus, > .... Hind toe absent. 



He might as well have said " Bill not recurved " instead of " Hind toe absent," how- 

 ever. 



This table confronts us with one of the peculiarities of some of the forms, their 

 fully palmate feet being unique among limicoline birds. Cladorhynchus is confined 

 to Australia, the two other genera occur both in the Old and the New World, and in 

 the latter both in North and in South America. 



A still smaller sub-family comprises the three species of Phalaropes, small, rather 

 short-billed, and short-legged birds, with the tip of the bill pointed and the toes fui- 

 nished with a lateral membrane, which is more or less lobate. The Phalaropodinre 

 are more oceanic during their migrations than most birds of this sub-family, and swim 

 with grace and ease. They are arctic and circumpolar in their distribution, wander- 

 ing far southward in winter. 



The central group of the Scolopacida3 is formed by an assemblage of birds, of 

 mostly plain grayish or brownish plumage, spotted with dusky, and more or less white 

 underneath, among which are the sanderlings, the godwits, tattlers, sandpipers, the 

 knot, the dotterel, and many other familiar birds. We call this assemblage Tringinae, 

 assigning to them as characters the absence of those features which have been 

 pointed out as peculiar to the foregoing groups, adding that they differ from the fol- 

 lowing sub-family the true snipes in having the eyes placed normally. On the 

 whole, the structure of the members is very normal, excessive developments and spe- 

 cializations in any direction being unusual. In this respect the curious spoon-billed 

 sandpiper (Eiirynorhyncfms pygmceus} is a noteworthy exception. The end of its bill 

 is greatly depressed and flattened out, so as to form a broad spade much more dispro- 

 portionate than the similar formation of the spoon-bill or the shoveller. This bird, 

 which is about the size of the dunlin, and normally sandpiper-colored, is very limited 

 in its distribution* and correspondingly rare in collections. It seems to breed some- 

 where in the neighborhood of Bering Strait, whence most of the specimens have been 

 obtained, traveling south in fall, and wintering on the shores of the Indian Ocean. 

 The habits of the sandpipers are, on the whole, not greatly diversified, although, of 



