“Famous!” laughed the Doctor; “of course I know them after that.”

“Do they all belong to the same family?” persisted Dodo, whose little head was beginning to swim with all this new knowledge it had to hold.

“Not all of them.  The Snipe and both the Sandpipers belong to one family, the same as that of the Woodcock; but the Rail belongs to a different family.  So also does the Plover you learned this morning.  The three families of Snipes, Plovers, and Rails are the largest ones of all the tribe of Birds that Paddle and Wade by the sea-shore.  The Rails from their size and shape are sometimes called Marsh Hens.  The Turnstone belongs to a fourth family, but it is a very small one.  Now I will give you the tables of the four kinds of birds you have learned this afternoon.”

[Illustration:  Spotted Sandpiper.]

Wilson’s Snipe

Length about eleven inches, of which the very long and straight bill makes more than two inches.

Upper parts all mixed with black, brown, gray, buff, and white in very intricate patterns; long wing-feathers plain dusky with a white edge on the outside one; tail-feathers beautifully barred with black, white, and reddish.

Under parts white, but mottled with dusky on the breast, where it also tinged with buff, and barred very distinctly on each side further back; under tail-coverts barred with buff and black.

Eyes brown; feet and bill greenish-gray, the latter very soft and sensitive, the former with a very small hind toe.

A Citizen of temperate North America, found at different seasons in marshy and boggy places throughout the United States.

A member of the guild of Ground Gleaners, and, like the Woodcock and Golden Plover, a fine game bird, which it is right to shoot for food at the proper season.

The Spotted Sandpiper

Length seven and a half inches.

Upper parts a pretty Quaker color, like the Cuckoo’s, but with many fine curved black lines; tail regularly barred with black and white.

Under parts pure white, with many round black spots all over them; but young birds do not have any spots.

Bill and feet flesh-colored, the former with a black tip, the latter with a very small hind toe, and a little web at the roots of the front toes.

A Summer Citizen of most parts of the United States and Canada, also found in winter in some of the Southern States and far beyond.

A member of the guild of Ground Gleaners, and a very gentle, confiding little bird who likes to be neighborly, and should never be shot, but encouraged to nest in our fields.

The Least Sandpiper

Length only five and a half to six inches—­the very least in size of all the Snipe family.  Upper parts black or blackish, in summer with rusty-red edgings and white tips of many feathers, in winter these edgings gray, a light line over the eye and a dark line from the bill to the eye.