270 AVES— ORDER CHARADRIIFORMES. 



the variation is endless. They are pugnacious birds, and fight for the 

 females, before whom they dance and pirouette, always ending by placing the 

 bill on the ground, so as to display the beauty of the ruff to the chosen lady. 

 Close to the true curlews comes the pearl-grey curlew (Ibidorhynchus 

 struthersi), which is found on the inland streams of the mountains of China, 

 Central Asia, and the Himalayas. It is the sole representation of the sub- 

 family Ibidorhynchinte, and has a curlew-like bill, but differs in having the 

 metatarsus reticulated both in front and behind. In outward appearance it 

 much resembles the small ibises, but an examination of the skull shows that 

 it is really an aberrant Limicoline bird. 



These birds are remarkable for their long legs and for the shape of their 



bills. In the stilts (Himantopiis) the bill is slender and straight, and the 



legs are extremely long, and when the birds are flying these 



The Stilts and are carried out behind them, and from their bright red 



Avocets. — colour are very conspicuous. The stilts are mostly black 



Sub-family and white birds, distributed through the marshes of the 



Himantopodince. temperate and tropical portions of both hemispheres, 



while a completely black species {H. melas) is found 



only in Kew Zealand. 



The avocets have the bill upturned, and the lower edge of the under 

 mandible is broad and flattened, the bird using it to scoop aside the sand in 

 search of food. The range of the avocets is very similar to that of the stilts, 

 and though they pass southwards in winter, they nest in Africa and India in 

 places suitable to their marsh-loving habits. One species, Becurvirostra an- 

 dina, is only known from the Andes of Chili, and in Australia the chestnut- 

 breasted avocet is found {Gladorhynchus lexicocephcdus), a bird with webbed 

 toes and devoid of a hind toe like the avocets, but with a very slightly up- 

 curved bill, and with longer and more stilt-like legs. 



The sub-family Peltohyatince is represented by a single genus, Peltohxios, 

 which again has but one species, P. australis. This bird has usually been 

 considered to be a kind of dotterel, and it has a dertral swelling towards the 

 end of the bill, as in these birds, but the tarsus has transverse scutes both in 

 front and behind, and the species is more like a courser in appearance. I 

 fully expect that an examination of its osteology and general anatomy will 

 prove that it is allied rather to the latter birds than to the plovers. 



In this sub-family we find the majority of the plovers, which are dis- 

 tinguished by having both aspects of the tarsus covered with hexagonal scales. 

 They may be divided into two groups, the lapwings and the 

 The True dotterels, the former with broad and rounded wings, mostly 

 Plovers. — resident in the countries they inhabit ; the latter with sharp 

 Sub-fainlly and pointed wings, with the secondaries nearly as long as 

 Charadnmcu. the primaries, and accustomed to long migrations. Some of 

 them are known, like the American golden plover (Chara- 

 di-ms dominicus), to be capable of immense flights, such as from Labrador to 

 the Bermudas, without touching land. 



Two genera have longer bills than any of the rest, Himornis and 

 Anarhynchns of New Zealand. The latter is 'known as the wry -billed plover, 

 and has its bill twisted to the right. Then comes the long array of dotterels, 

 such as JE lialitis, of which our common ring-dotterpl "is the type. The 

 members of the genus ^Tinhdltis are found nearly over the whole world, and 

 perform long migrations to the South in the winter. Their four pear-shaped 

 eggs are laid in a little depression in the sand or shingle, and the nestlings 



