The Limicolae often flock together in the cold season, but are by no means uniform in their habits, and divergencies will be noticed under the various genera. They run well, often bobbing the head up and down, and fly strongly, wheeling round sharply in the air; while some Snipes rise in zigzag fashion. Typically waders, many, if not all of them, can swim on emergency, but few habitually do so, like Phalaropes. Exceptionally they perch on trees, or soar. Swamps, river-sides, and in winter the sea-coast, are the general haunts; but Coursers, Stone-Curlews and "Seed-Snipes" frequent arid or stony localities, Dromas sandy islets or shores, Chionis maritime rocks. Vanellus cayennensis and Parra jacana are said to indulge in dances, while Lapwings and other species feign to be wounded if their young are in danger. The food consists of crustaceans, molluscs, worms, and insects; rarely of small fish or eggs of other birds; but not uncommonly of vegetable matter, on which the Thinocorythidae entirely subsist. The usual note is shrill, but the "scape, scape" of the Snipe, the melancholy whistle of the Curlew, the yelp of the Godwit, the reiterated scream of the Oyster-catcher, and the sweet song or trill of Temminck's Stint and of the Green Sandpiper should be noticed among the exceptions. Usually four pyriform eggs, varying from brownish or olive-green to stone-colour, with double markings of lighter and darker shades, are arranged in a hole scraped in the ground, with or without lining, the small ends pointing to the centre. Those of Oyster-catchers and Stone-Curlews are more oval, while the Dotterel and some other species lay only three, and Stone-Curlews two. The Parridae amass a considerable pile of water-plants, Chionis usually breeds in holes among rocks, the Green and the Wood-Sandpiper often use deserted nests of other birds. The young run almost from the shell, the Stone-Curlews and Dromas, which lays a white egg in sandy burrows, being to some extent exceptions. The male performs most of the duties of incubation in Rhynchaea, Phalaropus, and apparently the Dotterel, Bar-tailed Godwit, and Purple Sandpiper–if not elsewhere; while the Ruff is well known to be polygamous. Stone-Curlews and Woodcocks are certainly somewhat crepuscular, and the drumming of the Snipe (p. [291]) must be mentioned in passing. Nearly all Limicoline birds are migrants, and may frequently be heard overhead at night, when on passage. The flesh is generally excellent.
Fam. I. Charadriidae.–Sub-fam. 1. Charadriinae.–The Dotterel (Eudromias morinellus), breeds on the fells and tundras of Northern Europe and Asia, as well as on the mountains of Scotland, Transylvania, Styria, and Bohemia–if not still in the English Lake District; in winter it migrates to Palestine and North Africa. The colour is ashy-brown, with black crown and nape, towards the latter of which the white superciliary streaks run down; the throat is whitish, the fore-neck brown, divided by a white gorget from the orange-chestnut lower breast; the abdomen is black, the lateral rectrices are tipped with white. The young are more rufous above, and grey and white below. Three olive eggs with brown blotches are laid in a depression of the mossy ground, the parents being tamer than most Plovers at the nest. E. veredus inhabits Mongolia, wintering in the Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and Australia; E. australis is confined to the last country; E. (Zonibyx) modestus, the only four-toed species of the genus, ranges from Tarapacá and Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. Charadrius pluvialis, the Golden Plover, breeds on the higher British moorlands, and reaches from Northern Europe to the Lena in Asia, overlapping about the Yenisei C. fulvus, with grey instead of white axillaries, which extends to Bering Sea and–as the stouter, shorter-toed race C. dominicus–to Greenland. Both the latter have occurred in England. The plumage is black, densely spotted with yellow above, the forehead and superciliary streaks are white, as are the sides of the body. In winter the under parts are nearly white. At that season the various species migrate southwards as far as Cape Colony, India, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and Chili. The loud clear whistle of the Golden Plover is a characteristic sound in summer on our sub-alpine hills, where the bird deposits four rich olive-brown eggs in a hollow in the herbage; it is very wary at the nest. The Grey Plover, Squatarola helvetica, with a distinct hind toe and black axillaries, is browner than the foregoing three-toed species in summer, and greyer in winter; it visits us from autumn to spring, but breeds in the far north of Eastern Europe, Asia, and America, reaching Cape Colony, Ceylon, and Tasmania on migration. Erythrogonys cinctus of Australia, and the long-billed Oreophilus ruficollis of South America from Peru and Argentina to Patagonia and the Falklands, are nearly allied forms; while the rufous New Zealand Charadrius (?) obscurus apparently somewhat resembles the Dotterel in its habits and eggs.
Fig. 57.–Ringed Plover. Aegialitis hiaticola. × ⅖.
Aegialitis hiaticola, the Ringed Plover, Sand-Lark, or Stone-runner, mistakenly called the "Ring Dotterel," which is common on the British coasts and even inland, extends from Smith's Sound eastwards to Bering Strait, and migrates to South Africa, North India, or accidentally, Australia. It breeds as far south as the Atlantic Islands, North Africa, and Turkestan. The plumage is light brown, with white forehead, post-ocular streak, upper neck, alar bar, outer rectrices, and under surface; the crown, lores, cheeks, and a collar–broader in front–being black. The young lack the black crown. The habits and "peeping" cry hardly require description. When nesting on the warrens of the Eastern Counties it is called the Stone-hatch, because it there lays its black-spotted drab eggs in a hole paved with small stones. Ae. curonica, the Little Ringed Plover, which strays to Britain, the Färoes, and Iceland, breeds on inland waters from Scandinavia to Japan; reaching southwards to North Africa, Turkestan, and China, and on migration to the Gaboon, Mozambique, Ceylon, and New Guinea. It is distinguished from the last species by the shafts of all the primaries, except the outer one, being dusky. Ae. cantiana, the Kentish Plover, which still nests in Kent and Sussex, occupies Europe–though very locally–North Africa, and Central Asia to China and Japan; it comparatively seldom breeds inland, and is found in winter as far as South Africa, India, and Australia. The collar is incomplete in front, the female has no black crown, while the black legs distinguish it from the Ringed Plover. Ae. semipalmata, with a distinct web between the outer and middle toes, replaces the latter in North America, ranging in winter to Peru and Brazil; whereas Ae. placida represents it in China, Japan, and India. The place of the Kentish Plover is taken in western North America by Ae. nivosa–with white lores instead of black–which migrates to Chili. Ae. vocifera, termed "Kill-deer" from its cry, inhabits North America, and extends in winter to northern South America, while it has been shot even in the Scilly Islands; the lores are brown, and the fore-neck exhibits two black bands. It nests in the interior on grass or ploughed fields. In Ae. monachus of Southern Australia, the breeding male has a perfectly black head; in Ae. asiatica of Central Asia, which has wandered to Britain, the head is brown, and the breast shews a black-edged chestnut band, somewhat similar to that in Ae. bicincta of the Australian Region, and other species; Ae. bifrontata of Madagascar has grey lores, and two black bands on the breast. Space fails to mention all the species of this large three-toed genus; but Ae. (Thinornis) novae zealandiae of the New Zealand area, Ae. falklandica of America from Chili and Argentina southwards, and Ae. sanctae helenae, the "Wire-bird" peculiar to St. Helena, should be noticed.
Fig. 58.–Wry-bill. Anarhynchus frontalis. × ⅖.
Anarhynchus frontalis, the Wry-bill of New Zealand, is grey, with a black gorget and whitish lower parts; the habits are as in Aegialitis, but the laterally-twisted bill enables the bird to pick up insects from around stones with the greatest ease.
Thirteen species may perhaps be included in Lobivanellus (Wattled Lapwing); but here, as in the next genus, Vanellus, there are many diversities of opinion. The two groups are fairly similar in habits, nests, and eggs. Some have a hallux, some not. L. pectoralis of Australia and Tasmania, L. indicus, ranging from Arabia and Mesopotamia to Cochin China, L. cinereus of China and Japan, which migrates as far as Bengal, L. melanocephalus of North-East Africa, L. superciliosus, extending from West Africa to Lake Tanganyika, and the crested L. (Sarciophorus) tectus, found from Senegal to East Equatorial Africa and Arabia, have small loral wattles; L. (Lobipluvia) malabaricus of India, Ceylon, and Burma, L. miles, reaching from Timor Laut to New Guinea and Australia, L. cucullatus of Sumatra, Java, and Timor, L. lobatus of Australia, accidental in New Zealand, L. lateralis of the southern, and L. senegalensis of the northern Ethiopian Region, with L. albiceps of West Africa and the Upper Congo, have large wattles, and, except the first, a wing-spur. L. lobatus is olive-brown above, with black crown, nape, and wings; the cheeks, tail-coverts, and lower parts are white; the tail is white with black tip; the bill, wattles, and spurs are yellow, the feet purplish-red.
Vanellus comprises the true Lapwings; it is a closely allied genus to the last, and varies as to the possession of a hind-toe. V. cristatus, the English Peewit or Green Plover, has the upper parts and motile crest bottle-green, with a purple and copper gloss; the throat and upper breast black; the cheeks, sides of the neck, base of tail, and under surface white; the upper and lower tail-coverts bay. The slow flapping flight and shrill cry are as familiar to us as are the cock's aerial evolutions, and the habit of tumbling on the ground with an apparently broken wing to decoy intruders from the brood. This species frequents alike cultivated ground, marshes, and wastes, depositing its four olive eggs with black markings in a scraping in the soil lined with a little dry herbage; towards autumn it feeds in large flocks upon the shore, being semi-crepuscular, as might be expected from the large eyes. Breeding in most of Europe, Northern Asia, and even North Africa, it strays to Greenland and Jan Mayen, occurs plentifully in Japan, and at times in Alaska, and migrates as far south as Barbados, North India, and China. The somewhat similar Téru-téru (V. cayennensis),[[186]] with long crest and large blunt yellow spur, occupies the east, and the larger V. chilensis the west and south of South America; V. resplendens inhabits the Andes of North Chili, Peru, and Ecuador; V. coronatus South and East Africa; V. melanopterus, the latter and Arabia; V. inornatus West and South-East Africa. The long legged Chettusia gregaria, which, like the next genus, possesses a hallux, has occurred in Britain and South-West Europe, but breeds from South-East Europe to Lake Saisan, and migrates to North-East Africa, India, and Ceylon. C. leucura, of similar range, winters in North-East Africa and North India. Defilippia crassirostris of North-East, and D. leucoptera of South-East Africa, with very long toes and much white on the wing, are nearly akin to the above. Hoplopterus spinosus, the three-toed Spur-winged Lapwing of Egypt and the northern Ethiopian Region, which wanders to South-East Europe and Persia, is a crested black and white species with a brownish back. The Arabs call it "Zic-zac" from its cry, while it attacks birds on the wing with its spur. H. speciosus occupies South Africa, H. cayanus most of South America, H. ventralis ranges from North and Central India to Hainan.