SHORE BIRDS 



PHALAROPES, SNIPE, SANDPIPERS, PLOVERS, 

 SURF BIRDS, ETC. 



(Order Limicolce) 



Birds of the open field, marshy bogs and thickets, or shores 

 close by the water's edge, finding their food on the surface of the 

 ground, in the mud, or among the shallows of the beach, 

 averaging smaller than birds of any other group included in this 

 book, they usually have long slender legs for wading, and long 

 slender bills for probing the mud after food, which increase their 

 apparent size. Unlike the compressed figures of rails and their 

 allies, the bodies of these birds are depressed or well rounded; 

 their wings are long and pointed ; their tails, which are short, are 

 very full feathered. As compared with the large footed herons, 

 rails, and gallinules, these birds have short toes, the hinder one 

 very short, elevated, or absent; but certain species find their toes 

 long e'nough to tread out worms and small shell fish from the 

 mud flats, and some, partly webbed, are well adapted for swim- 

 ming. The nests of birds of this very large order are mere 

 depressions in the ground, not always lined with grass, and 

 their young, fully clothed with down when hatched, are able to 

 run about immediately. 



Phalaropes 



(Family Phalaropodidce) 



A small, select family of three, two of whose species keep 

 so far out at sea during their migrations from the Arctic regions 

 to the south that we rarely see them, Wilson's phalarope, alone, 

 being anywhere a common bird in the United States. Strangely 

 enough, it is far more abundant in the interior than on the coast. 



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