98 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



ORDER CHARADRIIFORMES.— THE BUSTARDS, 



PLOVERS, &c. 



THIS somewhat extensive group of birds contains not only the typical 

 Bustards (which form a link with the Ballifobmes on one hand, and 

 through the Stone Curlews with the typical Plovers on the other), Plovers, 

 Sandpipers, and Jacanas (Parbidm) , but such evidently generalized and 

 ancient forms as the Crab-Plover (Dbomadidm), the Sheathbills {Ohionididm), 

 and the somewhat Sand-Grouse-like birds (THZi'fOCOiJri'Hii)^)— numbering few- 

 species, some of them highly localised, and probably indicating the last surviving 

 relics of what were once dominant and widely distributed groups. There can be 

 no doubt that the most nearly surviving relations of the majority of the birds 

 included in the present order are the Gulls, which are associated with them by 

 some systematists. In the Ghabadbiifobmes the sternum usually contains two 

 notches on each side of the posterior margin, but in a few species one notch only 

 is found. In the modification of their cranial bones they are schizognathous ; 

 whilst their nostrils are almost universally schizorhinal (in the families 

 Thinocobtthidm, (Edicnemid^, and Otididm, and the genus Pluvianus, 

 the nostrils are holorhinal). Some of the other characters are not common to 

 the order, and these will be alluded to in the account of the several families 

 which are represented in the British avifauna. The primaries are eleven in 

 number ; the fifth secondary absent ; rectrices variable in number. The oil gland 

 when present is tufted ; the body feathers have an aftershaft. The toes are either 

 partially webbed, or have the webs entirely absent ; the hallux is absent in most 

 species, present in some, and, if present, always connected with the flexor longus 

 hallucis. The young are hatched covered with down, and able to run almost as 

 soon as they break from the shell. 



The birds in the present order number nearly three hundred species and sub- 

 species. These may be divided into nine fairly well-marked families (some, 

 however, of very small extent), of which five are represented in the British islands. 

 The birds in this order are practically cosmopolitan in their distribution, 



