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PIPING PLOVER. 
very different from the artificial one formed by so many authors 
for the three-toed Waders indiscriminately, and adopted under 
the name Charadriadse by the new English school, though professing 
to adhere to a natural arrangement—is well distinguished by its 
short (or moderately so) rather robust bill, the hind toe wanting, 
or when present, very short. It is composed of but eight genera, 
of which only three are found in North America, two aberrant, 
and the present, the only typical American, which is well dis¬ 
tinguished by its bill, very short rounded, obtuse, and somewhat 
turgid at tip. In order to exemplify how different from that of 
authors is this family, as we understand it, we may remark that 
the birds forming it are scattered by Illiger through his Campes- 
tres, Littorales, and Limicolse; by Cuvier and Latreille divided 
between their Longirostres and Pressirostres; by Vieillot placed in 
Pedionomi, jEgialites, Helionomi; in Tachidromi and Limose by 
Ranzani and Savi; in Charadriadse and Scolopacidse by Vigors, &c. 
Our genus Charadrius has different limits from those of perhaps 
any recent or former author, being more extensive than in many, 
but more contracted than that of Wagler, which comprehends all 
our typical Charadridas. Linne, who made it a sort of receptacle 
for nearly all three-toed Waders, has placed in Tringa some of 
our Plovers that are furnished with a rudiment of hind toe, and 
the same has been done by Gmelin, Latham, Illiger, and even, 
though to a less extent, by Cuvier. As long since restricted by the 
separation of Himantopus and Calidris, which are not of the same 
family, and of CEdicnemus, which truly is, it is much more natural; 
especially if with Wilson we unite with it, as nature dictates, those 
species that happen to possess the rudiment of a fourth toe. 
Among the earlier writers Brisson was the first who assigned 
more natural limits to the genus which he called Pluviatis, and his 
two well enough composed genera, Piuvlalis and Vanellus , include 
all our Plovers. Cuvier, Temminck, Vieillot, and Ranzani place 
