120 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family CHARADRIID/E.— The Plovers, Sandpipers 



and Snipes. 



The birds in the present family are characterised by having the nostrils 

 schizorhinal, the basipterygoid processes present, and the dorsal vertebrae opis- 

 thocoelous. In their pterylosis they show much affinity with the Labifobmes. 

 The chief external characteristics of the Plovers and their allied forms are the 

 almost universally prevailing long pointed wings adapted in most cases for 

 prolonged migrations, comparatively short tail and long legs ; their webbed, or 

 semi-webbed, or lobed feet ; the hind toe is small, in some cases wanting, and 

 elevated above the plane of the rest. Primaries ten in number ; rectrices very 

 variable in this respect. Moult double in most (if not in all) 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, the most worn, abraded, or " dead " 

 feathers only being replaced. During the following spring these immature 

 birds moult into summer plumage, resembling that of adults, only the wing 

 coverts retain their rich summer hue all the winter until the next autumn moult, 

 when they are changed for the greyer ones of winter. The wing coverts of adults 

 seem only to be moulted once, in autumn, and this portion of their plumage is 

 always the same colour after the bird reaches the adult stage of its existence. 

 Young hatched covered with down, and able to run shortly after they leave the 

 shell. There are about two hundred species and races in the present family, 

 which is practically a cosmopolitan one. Por the sake of convenience the 

 Ghabadbiidm may be subdivided into ten subfamilies, no less than seven of 

 which have representatives in the British list. 



