Generally long-legged, slender-billed birds of shores and mud flats, and sometimes fields. Most of them are under a foot in length; none are so large as the Ibises; wings long and pointed; tail short; toes long and slender, usually without webs; color generally brown or blackish above, mottled and streaked with whitish and buff. Many species utter characteristic piping whistles as they fly or when they take wing.
Family 24. PHALAROPES. Phalaropodidæ.
Front toes with lobes or webs; tarsus flattened; plumage thick; swimming Snipe.
Family 25. AVOCETS AND STILTS. Recurvirostridæ.
Long legged, wading Snipe; in Avocets toes four, front three webbed; bill recurved; in Stilts toes three, almost unwebbed; bill straight.