CHAPTER XXVII 

 ORDER OF SHORE BIRDS 



LIMICOLAE 



AS the name of the Order indicates, these birds live on 

 ^ the ocean and lake beaches, and the banks of rivers, 

 ponds and pools, where they find many kinds of queer things 

 to feed upon. On the boundary line betwixt sea and land 

 they find many insects, shell-fish, crustaceans and worms. 

 The turnstones make a business of turning over pebbles and 

 small stones, in order to capture the worms and insects that 

 take shelter under them. 



Let it not be thought, however, that all shore birds live 

 on shores. Far from it. Before the days of general bird 

 slaughter and extermination, there were plovers and curlews 

 and dowitchers and other species that were at home on the roll- 

 ing prairies of Iowa, Illinois and Kansas, miles and miles from 

 the nearest pond, lake or river. Even to the eyes of a farmer 

 boy knowing naught of natural-history books, they seemed 

 strangely out of place; for their long, slender legs suggested 

 water and wading. In those days we wondered what they 

 found on those dry prairies to feed upon; but now we know 

 that they fed bountifully upon insects! 



Until the publication in April, 1911, by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, of Professor W. L. McAtee's 



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