Order CHARADRIIFORMES. 



Family CHARADRIID^, or PLOVERS, SANDPIPERS, 

 and SNIPES. 



The Plovers, Sandpipers, and Snipes comprise a well-defined, 

 large, and important group of birds, most nearly allied to the 

 Bustards through the Stone Curlews on one hand, and to the 

 Cranes perhaps through the Rails on the other. Their sternum 

 usually contains two notches on each side of the posterior 

 margin, but in a few aberrant species only one notch. In the 

 modification of their cranial bones they are schizognathous, most 

 nearly approaching the Game Birds and the Gulls, nasals almost 

 universally schizorhinal. In their pterylosis they also show much 

 affinity with the latter group. 



The chief external characteristics of the Plovers and their 

 allied forms are the long pointed wings, adapted in most cases 

 for prolonged migrations, comparatively short tail and long 

 legs ; their webbed, or semi-webbed, or lobed feet, and in some 

 species, serrated middle claw; the hind toe is small, sometimes 

 wanting, and elevated above the plane of the rest. Primaries 

 ten in number; rectrices very variable in this respect. Moult 

 double in most species. The autumn or winter plumage in a 

 great many species is much less gaudy than that of summer, 

 whilst differences in sexual colour are, as a rule, not very marked. 

 The young in first plumage more or less closely resemble adults 

 in summer plumage. These young birds, however, do not retain 

 the bright colours of their first plumage long, but proceed to 

 change at the beginning of autumn into a dress which closely 

 resembles the winter plumage of their parents — not by a moult, 

 but by an actual change in the hue of the feather, only the most 

 worn, abraded, or "dead" feathers being replaced. During the 



