144 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
>Scolopacidae Carus, Handb. Zool., i, 1868, 334 (includes Dromadide!).— 
Sarre, Review Rec. Att. Classif. Birds, 1891, 73 (includes Phalaropodide 
and Recurvirostride). 
<Totaninae Carus, Handb. Zool., i, 1868, 335.—Suarpz, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., 
xxiv, 1896, xi, 91, 337; Hand- list, i, 1899, xv, 157.—Satvin and Gopman, 
Biol. Centr.-Am., ‘Aves, iii, 1903, 364. 
<Scolopacine SHARPE, Cat. Birds Brit, Mus., xxiv, 1896, xii, 91, 520; Hand-list, 
i, 1899, xvi, 162. —SaLvin and GoDMAN, Biol. Centr.-Am. , Aves, iii, 1903, 384, 
==xSeolopuaivs SoLaTeR and Sanvin, Nom. Av. Neotr., 1873, ‘144, 
Very small to very large Charadriiformes with tarsus transversely 
scutellate both in front and behind (except in most of the Numeniex, 
in which the planta tarsi is covered with small hexagonal scales), 
less than twice as long as middle toe with claw, and not unusually 
compressed; bare portion of tibia shorter than middle toe with claw, 
and toes without a conspicuous lateral membrane. 
The Scolopacide are small, medium-sized, or large shore-birds 
allied to the Charadriide (Plovers) but differing in the scutellate 
intsead of reticulate acrotarsium, differently formed bill, and excep- 
tional absence of the hallux. They are also closely related to the 
Phalaropodide (Phalaropes) and Recurvirostride (Avocets and 
Stilts) from which they differ, in part, in the characters mentioned in 
the above brief diagnosis. Typical genera are very different indeed 
from any members of the related families; but the Scolopacide em- 
brace such a large number of forms that it is difficult to find charac- 
ters (external ones, at least) which will serve to distinguish them all, 
as a family, from the groups mentioned. The most highly specialized 
subfamily, the Scolopacine, comprising the woodcocks and true 
snipes, has the bill much elongated, covered by a soft skin, and 
provided at the tip with extremely sensitive nerves, which enable 
these birds, by probing the soil or mud, to detect, by the sense of 
touch, worms and other minute animal forms on which they feed. 
The eye is large and placed unusually high in the head, and the ear 
is placed beneath or even anterior to the center of the orbit. These 
characters are most pronounced in the woodcocks (genera Scolopaz 
and Philohela), being slightly less developed in the snipes (genera 
Gallinago, etc.)} and still less so in intermediate forms (Limosa, 
Pseudoscolopax, Limnodromus, and Micropalama, which lead directly 
from the Scolopacine to the Eroliins, though probably all belong- 
ing to the latter group. 
The Scolopacide are among the most widely dispersed of birds, a 
large proportion of the species being more or less cosmopolitan; but 
this is owing to their extensive migration, a very great majority of 
them being confined during the breeding season to the more northern 
portions of the northern hemisphere, in subarctic and cold-temperate 
districts of Europe, Asia, and North America. More than 30 species, 
belonging to nineteen genera, are exclusively American, and of these 
only about twelve, belonging mostly to Gallinago or closely allied 
