452 The Water-fowl Family 



upland fields. Their food consists largely of in- 

 sects and occasionally berries, but none of them 

 bore in the mud for their food like a snipe. Swift 

 either on foot or on the wing, they delight our 

 eyes with their graceful movements, as they do 

 our ears with their mellow call-notes. 



None of the plovers are very large, and the 

 neck is shorter than in the families already consid- 

 ered. The bill is peculiar, — shorter than the head, 

 and in shape somewhat like that of a pigeon. 

 Near the rounded nostrils the bill is compressed 

 and then expands, curving over in a hard tip. 

 The legs are covered with small hexagonal scales ; 

 the anterior toes have a small web at the base, and 

 the hind toe is usually wanting. Although five 

 genera occur in North America, our common spe- 

 cies belong to two groups : one of these contains 

 birds of medium size with mottled upper parts and 

 with the lower parts black in the adults in sum- 

 mer ; the other, small birds with plain upper parts, 

 white lower parts, and usually a dark ring on the 

 neck. 



LAPWING 

 {Vanellus vanellus) 



Adult male in breeding plumage — Forehead, top of the head, chin, 

 throat, and breast, glossy lustrous black; feathers of occiput 

 lengthened into a crest of the same color, curving upward; 

 sides of head and neck, white, marked with black streaks 

 behind the eyes ; back, scapulars, and tertials, metallic green, 

 changing to coppery purple on the outer scapulars ; rump, like 



