GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



OE 



THE CHARADHIID.E. 



CHAPTER I. 



CLASSIFICATION OF BIBBS. 



The Plovers, the Sandpipers, and the Snipes form three groups of birds which are very 

 nearly allied, and may be conveniently classed together in a family, to which the name of 

 C/iaradriidce has been given. 



The precise position of this family in the Avian System is difficult to determine, for 

 the sufficient reason that ornithologists are not yet agreed upon a classification of birds ; 

 but the following rude attempt may enable the student to form some idea of the groups to 

 which they are nearest related. 



The Classification of Birds, in its progress from the artificial system of the last century 

 to the natural system, which may possibly be discovered in the next, is passing through an 

 intermediate stage to which the word chaos is not altogether inapplicable. Cuvier's 

 modification of the division of birds into six Orders, adopted by Linnaeus, and founded for 

 the most part on the structure of the feet, is acknowledged by every ornithologist to be 

 wrong ; but it would be difficult to find tw T o ornithologists who had studied this branch of 

 the subject and who agreed as to the number, to say nothing of the names, of the Orders 

 which are to take the place of the Cuvierian ones. The latest contribution to the legion of 

 new systems which have appeared is that of Mr. Sclater, published in the ' Ibis' for 1880. 

 In this scheme no fewer than twenty-six Orders are recognized. That these groups may 

 approximately represent a natural arrangement I am not prepared to deny, but for all 

 practical purposes a primary division into so large a number as a score or more units is of 

 little value. It is impossible that these twenty-six mountains in the ornithological range 

 can be exactly equidistant from each other ; and surely some ornithologist can be found with 



Position of 

 the Chara- 

 driidse. 



Unsatisfac- 

 tory state of 

 the Classifi- 

 cation of 

 Birds. 



Sclater's 

 System. 



