428 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I50 



species of the group in Central and South America, being especially 

 long and slender. Both avocets and stilts range in marshlands and 

 along muddy shores, usually in companies that remain together during 

 the nesting season. Their food is obtained from water and mud, that 

 of the stilt by probing. Avocets often walk through shallows with 

 the bill sweeping like a scythe back and forth over the surface of 

 the mud. 



HIMANTOPUS MEXICANUS (Muller): Black-necked StUt; Viuda 



Figure 68 

 Charadrius Mexicanus, P.L.S. Muller, Natursyst. Suppl., 1776, p. 117. (Mexico.) 



Legs very long and slender ; black above, white underneath. 



Description. — Length, 345 to 365 mm. Adult male, crown, sides 

 of head, hindneck, upper back, and wings black, with a slight sheen 

 of greenish blue; forehead, spot behind eye, central portion of both 

 eyelids, central and lower back, rump, upper tail coverts and entire 

 undersurface pure white; tail pale gray; under wing coverts dull 

 black, with a few white markings on the edge of the wing. 



Female, similar but lower hindneck, upper back, and scapulars 

 brownish black. 



Immature, black of crown duller; hindneck and upper back gray- 

 ish brown to brownish black. 



Iris red ; bill black ; legs and feet pinkish red ; claws black. 



Resident. Found locally along channels in the mangroves, on tidal 

 mudflats, and around lowland pools. Part of those present in the 

 dry season may be migrants from elsewhere. 



The first report of the species is that of Lawrence (Ann. Lye. Nat. 

 Hist. New York, vol. 8, 1863, p. 12) who listed it as received from 

 McLeannan without comment. Jewel (Auk, 1913, p. 425) secured 

 one at the Gatun Dam on November 11, 1911, a bird that had been 

 present there for a week. Griscom (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 69, 

 1929, p. 155) recorded a female taken by Benson at El Real, Darien, 

 in 1928, and another (I.e., vol. 72, 1932, p. 322), a male, collected by 

 Wedel, at Perme, San Bias. These are the only published records of 

 specimens that I have seen. 



In my own field studies I found an adult and a full grown imma- 

 ture bird on April 4, 1948, at the mouth of the Rio Chico, Panama, 

 and in the following year on March 16, I shot a bird there that 

 still had part of the juvenile plumage on the back of the neck. Others 

 were seen there on March 24. On March 5, 1956, I found between 

 50 and 60 at this point, the largest assemblage that I have recorded in 



