Genus— P ELTOHYAS. 
Peltohyas Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. XXIV., 
p. 307, 1896 . . . . . . . . . . Type P. australis. 
Glabeoline birds with rather long bills, short wings, short tail, and long legs 
with small feet. The bill is long, with the tip very little decurved ; the 
depression in which the nostrils lay extends more than half the length of the 
biQ ; the nostrils are linear and placed at the anterior end of this depression ; 
lower mandible is straight, with the 
gonydal angle little marked, but more 
so than in most other genera of this 
family. To show the nature of the 
bill and the position of the nostrils 
I attach carefuUy-made drawings of 
the bill from the side and from above, 
and also a drawing of the leg, showing 
its typical cursorine character. 
The wings are short, with the 
first primary longest. The tail is short 
and rounded, less than half the length 
of the wing. The legs are long ; the 
metatarsus is regularly scutellate before 
and behind ; the toes are short, and the middle claw is not pectinate. 
There is no hind toe. 
The history of this genus is very peculiar. The bird was first described 
by Gould, who allotted it to Eudromias, on account of its vague resemblance 
to the European bird. He remarked that it was a beautiful representative 
of the European bird in Australia, ignoring the fact that the former was 
a dweller of the subarctic mountain-tops, the latter a resident of desert 
plains. No one seems to have doubted this extraordinary location until 
1896, when Sharpe, monographing the Charadriifortnes in the British Museum, 
noted the peculiar metatarsal covering, and thereupon introduced for it 
alone the new genus Peltohyas, and further allotted to it a new subfamily 
Peltohyatince. In 1912 I included it in the genus Charadrius, using that 
name in its widest significance and minimising the differences observed. 
In doing this I was in company with Seebohm, who had previously so 
placed it. 
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