4V0CET. s8g 



Recurvirostra avosetta. — The Avoset. — H. Chapman had two, killed 

 on Skipwith Common, near Selby, about twenty years since, one of 

 which is now in the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society ; 

 F. O. Morris says several have been shot on the Humber and on other 

 parts of the coast. A. Strickland has known several near the Spurn 

 Lighthouse in spring some years ago, but he has heard of no recent 

 instance. 



This singular looking bird was formerly not uncommon 

 in Yorkshire, when the mud banks of the Humber and the 

 adjacent marshes and Carrs of the East Riding afforded a 

 congenial environment to birds of this class ; the same 

 causes, however, which conduced to the extirpation of other 

 rare species have driven it from its former haunts, and it is 

 now but an accidental straggler from Continental Europe. 



The latest known instance of the Avocet nesting in Britain 

 was at the mouth of the Trent, about the year 1837, 

 Hugh Reid of Doncaster informed A. G. More, in a letter 

 dated ist June 1861, that eggs were taken on a sand island 

 at the mouth of the river Trent about twenty-four years 

 before. There was at the time a spring tide, which nearly 

 covered the island, and the eggs were floating on the water. 

 The man who took them shot one of the parent birds at the 

 same time and brought the eggs to Mr. Reid. The island 

 had patches of grass growing on it, and there was always mud 

 and warp about it — a likely place for the bird to feed on. 



The county boundary being at this place drawn in the 

 centre of the River Trent, Yorkshire will share with Lincoln- 

 shire the honour of possessing the last British breeding station 

 of the Avocet. 



The recorded and communicated notices of its occurrence 

 during the past century are as follows : — 



Two on Skipwith Common, about 1824 (Allis). 



At Spurn Point several were obtained before 1844, accord- 

 ing to Allis's friend and correspondent, Arthur Strickland. 



In 1827-28 one, as recorded by J. Hogg {Zool. 1845, p. 

 1172), at the Teesmouth ; a locality whence Mr, J. H. Gurney 

 reported it {op. cit. 1876, p. 4765) as having occurred two or 

 three times, one of which was probably referable to an indi- 

 vidual from the Teesmouth in the spring of 1849, formerly 



