76 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



giving it a curious aspect. At all seasons it is 

 gi-egarious, and the effect produced by a large flock 

 either standing on the mud or fluttering in the air 

 is very singular and pleasing. The bird obtains 

 its food by working its long slender upturned bill 

 from side to side, and this food is composed chiefly 

 of small worms, insects and larvse, and tiny 

 crustaceans, the captured morsel being swallowed 

 with a toss of the head. The note of this species 

 is a clear and softly uttered tii-it, heard most 

 frequently when its breeding-places are disturbed 

 by man. 



In Western Europe the Avocet commences to 

 breed in May. It nests in colonies, many pairs of 

 birds occupying a small area of suitable ground. 

 The nests are little more than hollows in the sand 

 or mud, or amongst the short herbage, lined with 

 a few bits of dry herbage. The three or four 

 eggs are pale buff" in ground colour, spotted and 

 blotched with blackish brown and grey. Both 

 parents incubate them, and but one brood is reared 

 in the season. 



The adult Avocet has the crown, the back of the 

 neck, the primaries, scapulars, and a band across 

 the wing from the shoulder to the end of the 

 innermost secondaries black ; the remainder of 



