There are three major families of shorebirds: 1  Waders, about 220 species, include sandpipers, lapwings, snipes, plovers, stilts and various other species. These birds inhabit coasts and shorelines, as well as other open habitats. 2  Gulls, terns, skuas, jaegers and skimmers form a group of a little over 100 species.
The compass was probably invented in the Qin Dynasty (221-206BC) by Chinese fortune-tellers who used the lodestones to construct their fortune telling boards.
Accounts of the history of the compass often points to 2nd century BC China as its place of origin. However there are researchers who say the Olmecs were using a compass around 1000 BC.n 1117 Zhu Yuâs book Pingzhou Table Talks came out. It was the first time in the history of the compass that the device was mentioned as a tool for navigation. From the 800s to the 1040s, the Chinese referred to magnetism and magnetic needles in many of their books.