CHAPTER XXIII 



THE PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS 



(Order Charadriiformes) 



[FFERING from the last order (Gruiformes), with which in a number 

 of particulars they seem to be most closely related, by the technical 

 characters of opisthoccelous dorsal vertebrae and a four-notched 

 instead of two-notched sternum, is this vast cosmopolitan order 

 of so-called Plover-like birds. But as previously indicated, the selection of 

 a popular name for a great group that will convey anything like an adequate 

 impression of all the forms included in it is well-nigh impossible, and especially 

 so in the present case, for what are taken to be the central or typical forms may 

 be indeed are very unlike the outliers that are bound to them by a greater 

 or less number of often minute or obscure but relatively important characters 

 from the standpoint of classification. The typical Plover-like birds, or what 

 Gadow calls the Charadriiformes in the narrow sense, are mostly Rail-like 

 marsh or shore birds, with rather long necks, slender, long legs, and long, slender 

 bills, which may be approximately straight, curved upward or downward, or, 

 exceptionally, bent sideways, usually short wings and tails, and a dull-colored, 

 often streaked, plumage. From these we pass to the aquatic, mainly oceanic, 

 Gulls, Terns, Skimmers, and Auks and their immediate allies, and come byway 

 of the somewhat anomalous Sand Grouse to the great and quite diversified 

 group of Pigeons. The latter are in no sense aquatic and at first blush seem 

 very unlike those first alluded to, and were it not for the pronouncement of 

 comparative anatomy, we might be justified on mere external appearance in 

 separating them quite widely, and yet the thread of apparent, though perhaps 

 remote, kinship seems to run through them all. 



The present order is divided into four suborders : the Limicola, embracing 

 six families, among them the Plovers, Snipes, Pratincoles, Thick-knees, and 

 Jacanas ; the Lari, including the families Laridce, or Gulls, Terns, and Skimmers, 

 and the AlcidcE, or Auks; the Pterocles, which includes the single family Ptero- 

 clidcB, or Sand Grouse ; the Cohimbce, or Pigeons, divided among three families, 

 the Didida for the Dodo and Solitare, the Columbida for the great majority 

 of Pigeons, and the Didunculida for the peculiar Tooth-billed Pigeons. The 

 first two suborders are brigaded together under the name of Laro-Limicol<z, 

 and the others into the Pteroclo-ColumbcB, in accordance with their affinities. 

 The characters of the various groups are set forth under the several headings. 



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