380 The Plover-like Birds 



gonia to Bolivia, being especially abundant on the plains of Patagonia and 

 migrating northward to the pampas of Argentina in winter. It is a plump- 

 bodied bird, the smallest of the family, attaining a length of only six inches, 

 the coloration being t buffy brown marked and banded with black above and 

 white beneath, with a broad band of black on each side of the throat, which 

 unites and expands into a collar on the fore neck. Mr. Hudson states that 

 the legs and feet are extremely small and feeble, and scarcely able to 

 sustain the weight of the body. "When alighting the Seed-Snipe drops its 

 body directly upon the ground and sits close like a Goatsucker; when rising 

 it rushes suddenly away with the wild, hurried flight and sharp, scraping alarm- 

 cry of a Snipe. . . . They usually go in flocks of about forty or fifty individuals 

 and fly rapidly, keeping very close together. On the ground, however, they 

 are always much scattered, and are so reluctant to rise that they will allow 

 a person to walk or ride through the flock without taking wing, each bird creep- 

 ing into a little hollow in the surface or behind a tuft of grass to escape obser- 

 vation. During its winter sojourn on the pampas the flock always selects as 

 a feeding ground a patch of whitish argillaceous earth, with a scanty withered 

 vegetation; and here when the birds crouch motionless on the ground, to which 

 their gray plumage so closely assimilates in color, it is most difficult to detect 

 them. If a person stands close to or in the midst of a flock, the birds will 

 presently betray their presence by answering each other with a variety of strange 

 notes, resembling the cooing of Pigeons, loud taps on a hollow ground, and 

 other mysterious sounds, which seem to come from beneath the earth."' D'Or- 

 bigny's Seed-Snipe (T. orbignyanus) is easily distinguished by its larger size; 

 it is found in Peru, where in the Puna region it reaches an elevation of 12,000 

 to 14,000 feet, in Bolivia, Chile, and western Argentina. 



THE THICK-KNEES 



(Family (Edicnemidce) 



The Thick-knees, Stone Plovers, or Stone Curlews, as they, are variously 

 called, form a small but very well marked group, distinguished "at once from 

 all the other members of the order by possessing rounded (holorhinal) instead 

 of slit-like nostrils. They have moderately long legs, the tarsus being reticu- 

 lated all around, and three toes, the hind one being absent, which are united 

 at the base by a membrane. The greater or less enlargement of the tarsal joint 

 gives them the name of Thick-knees, while their predilection for stony ground 

 furnishes the basis for their other popular names. They are to a considerable 

 extent nocturnal in their habits and consequently possess rather large, full eyes. 

 The wings are of medium length, while the tail of twelve feathers is more or less 

 graduated. As to location, they prefer in general open, unwooded country, or 

 that but sparsely covered with low scrub, and in habits as well as in structure 

 approach quite closely to the Bustards, with which they are not infrequently 



