128 
Field Marks. General outline, habit, habitat, and flight, characteristics which are 
usually quite diagnostic. 
Nesting. On the ground, except in one species. 
Distribution. The order, Shore Birds, is cosmopolitan and there are few areas in the 
world that some of its members do not occupy. The Old and New World forms of the 
northern hemisphere are closely related; some are identical, many are subspecifically 
related, and a few, such as the Turnstone, are found all over the world. Most of our 
northern species breed in the far north, some of them as far as exploration has gone, though 
a few nest along, and across, our southern borders. 
The Shore Birds, in the days of their original abundance, were, in the 
east and south, favourite game; now, since their numbers have been so 
greatly reduced, they are seldom systematically hunted, and are shot 
only incidentally. Of the Shore Birds of Canada, the Woodcock and 
Wilson’s Snipe are the most interesting game. The representatives of the 
order found in Canada are divided into six families: Phalaropodidae, 
Phalaropes; Recur virostridae, Stilts and Avocets; Scolopacidae, Snipes 
and Sandpipers, constituting the bulk of our species; Charadriidae, Plover; 
Aphrizidae, Turnstones; and Haematopodidae, Oyster-catchers. 
Economic Status. Most of the members of the order inhabit waste 
land and have little economic effect; others, frequenting cultivated fields, 
are of greater importance, and will be discussed under their specific headings. 
On the whole, the order is either harmless, or actively helpful to man. 
Shore Birds have never been regarded as desirable game in the west, 
where larger and more prized objects of sport were available. Now, since 
they have become so greatly reduced, Shore Birds, except for a few 
species, are seldom hunted anywhere. Woodcock and Snipe shooting still 
have their devotees who care more to exercise their skill than to obtain 
heavy bags; but Woodcock are too rare west of the Great Lakes to be 
seriously considered as game and Snipe shooting has not hitherto appealed 
greatly to the western sportsmen. It was, therefore, little hardship to the 
western shooter, when the majority of these species were given a continuous 
close season under the Migratory Birds Convention Act. Though the 
Limicolae , as an order, never seriously suffered in our western provinces, some 
of its species were not so fortunate. Large waders like the Avocet, God wits, 
Curlew, and Willet, that commonly nested in what are now settled com- 
munities, have suffered greatly, though not so much from the legitimate 
sportsman as from the pot-hunter. The Migratory Birds Convention Act 
came none too soon to save them, and although the future of the vast hordes 
of lesser waders that nest far to the north seems reasonably secure, that of 
these larger ones is still doubtful. Those that so hang in the balance 
include some of the most attractive wild life of the prairies, they add a 
grace to many otherwise monotonous landscape, and their long, clear, 
cool, flute-like whistles are amongst the imponderables that give character 
to the wide, open of the great west. 
FAMILY — PHALAROPODIDAE. PHALAROPES. SEA SNIPES 
General Description. Small birds between 7-75 and 8*75 inches long, wader-like in 
form, but with plumage dense and gull-like. This, combined with their toes, bordered 
with web-lobes or edgings, and flattened tarsi (Figures 154 and 156), makes them com- 
paratively easy to recognize. 
Distinctions. Small Waders characterized as above. Cannot be mistaken for any 
other birds. 
