Shore-bird Shooting 319 



ward as in the curlews; it may be broad and 

 flattened at the point as in the spoon-billed 

 sandpiper, or with the point bent sideways at an 

 angle as in the crook-billed plover — an inhab- 

 itant of New Zealand. We find it pigeon-like in 

 the plovers, rather short and pointed in the 

 turnstones, long and wedge-shaped in the oyster- 

 catchers, and with a heavy sheath at base in the 

 sheath-bills; but always its shape is that best 

 fitted to obtain the food on which the bird 

 subsists. 



Seven families are found in North America, 

 the phalaropes {Pkalaropodidcs), avocets and stilts 

 {Recurvirostridce), snipes and sandpipers {Scolo- 

 pacidce), plovers {Charadriida), surf-birds and 

 turnstones (AphrizidcB), oyster-catchers (Hcema- 

 topodida), and jacanas (Jacanida). 



THE PHALAROPES 



(Phalaropodidm) 



The phalarope family contains only three 

 species of small birds, two of which breed in the 

 far North and occur throughout most of the north- 

 ern hemisphere in migration, while the third is 

 confined in the breeding season to the interior 

 of North America. They differ from the other 

 families of the order by combining a bill, slender 

 and as long as the head, a long neck, breast 

 feathers compact and duck-like, legs flattened 



