Genus— C IRREPIDESMUS. 
CniREPiDESMUs Bonaparte, Comptes Rendus Sci. 
(Paris), Vol. XLIII., p. 417, 1856 . . . . Type C. atrifrons. 
Also spelt, Cirrhepidesmiis Harting, Ibis 1870, p. 379. 
Small Plovers with stout bills, long wings, short legs, and medium-sized feet. 
The culmen is straight, with a swollen dertrum which is almost half the 
length of the culmen. The wings are long and pointed with the first primary 
longest. The tail is short and square. The metatarsus is short and reticulated 
throughout. The toes are not connected by a web at the base. No hind 
toe. The culmen is shorter than the middle toe without claw. 
The small Plovers known as Ringed Plovers, Sand-Plovers or Dotterels, 
have caused much trouble to systematists on account of their general likeness 
yet structural dissimilarity. Ha^ung decided they should not be classed with 
Pluvialis, the names to be used needed careful consideration. 
I have before noted the disposition of the American members in the genera 
Oxyechus^ jPJgialitis, OcTithodroinus, and Podasocys, and discussed the generic 
nomenclature of the groups admitted by Sharpe in the Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., 
showing {Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., p. 5, 1911) that it is necessary to replace 
Charadrius by Pluvialis and JEgialitis by Charadrius^ and that Eupoda was 
older than Ochthodromus. 
At the present time I have to consider the species grouped by S^harpe 
in OchthodrmnuSy and I am compelled to conclude that they cannot be con- 
sidered congeneric. As a matter of fact it will have been noticed that one 
of the species classed by Sharpe in Ochthodromus, viz. mongolus Pallas, 
appears in the A.O.U. ChecJclist under jEgialitis. 
The diagnosis given by Sharpe for the genus Ochthodrmnus reads : — 
“ Bill stout or moderately so ; culmen about equal to the length of the 
middle toe and claw.” 
Thereunder was classed 0. obscurus, wilsonii, hicinctus, mongolus, geo^royi, 
pyrrhothorax=atrifrons, and veredus. 
The first-mentioned is the large New Zealand Dotterel which has a very 
stout bill and short legs ; the next is the monotypic type of the genus 
Ochthodromus, which is a very small bird with a very stout bill and short 
VOL. m. 
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