CHAPTEE XVI. 



Subfamily TOTANIN.E. 



Dias 



Charadriid^e digito externo cum medio ad basin membrana counexo : naribus ultra partem quartam 

 rostri ab basi non extensis. 



Characters 

 of sub- 

 family. 



Climatic dis- 

 tribution. 



The Totaninas may be diagnosed as follows : — 



Charadriidas having the outer and middle toes united by a web at the base ; and 

 having the nasal aperture situated within the basal fourth of the bill. 



About sixty birds belonging to this subfamily possess both these characters ; but the 

 resemblance between one of them, Ereunetes pmillus, and a species in the next subfamily, 

 Tringa minutilla, is so close that it is difficult to believe that they are not more nearly 

 related to each other than each of them is to their respective congeners, in which case the 

 first character of the subfamily must be regarded as denoting analogy rather than affinity. 



The subfamily of Totaninae is unquestionably both Arctic and Circumpolar. Of the 

 64 species and subspecies which it contains 



27 are exclusively Arctic. 



1 are Arctic and Temperate. 



18 are exclusively Temperate. 



9 are Temperate and Tropical. 



are exclusively Tropical. 



64 



35 are exclusively Old- World. 



2 are Circumpolar, 

 27 are exclusively New-World. 



64 



Of the 8 genera of which it consists, 7 are represented in both the Old and the New 

 World, and the remaining genus is of very doubtful validity. There can scarcely be any 

 doubt that the common ancestors of these 64 species were residents of the Polar Basin 

 during the breeding-season before the Pre-Pliocene Glacial Epoch. 



