24 A VOSET 



England, — " Cobbler's-awl," from its likeness to the tool so called, 

 and " Scooper," because it resembled the scoop with which boatmen 

 threw water on their sails. The legs, though long, are not extra- 

 ordinarily so, and the feet, which are webbed, bear a small hind toe. 

 This species was of old time plentiful in England, though 

 doubtless always restricted to certain localities. Charleton in 

 1668 says that when a boy he had shot not a few on the Severn, 

 and Plot mentions it so as to lead one to suppose that in his time 

 (1686) it bred in Staftbrdshire, while Willughby (1676) knew of it 

 as being in winter on the eastern coast, and Pennant in 1769 found 

 it in great numbers opposite to Fossdyke Wash in Lincolnshire, and 

 described the birds as hovering over the sportsman's head like Lap- 

 wings. In this district they were called " Yelpers " from their 

 cry ; ' but whether that name was elsewhere applied is uncertain. 

 At the end of the last century they frequented Eomney Marsh in 

 Kent, and in the first quarter of the present century they bred in 

 various suitable spots in Suffolk and Norfolk, — the last place known 

 to have been inhabited by them being Salthouse, where the people 

 made puddings of their eggs, while the birds were killed for the 

 sake of their feathers, which were used in making artificial flies for 

 fishing. The extirpation of this settlement took place between 

 1822 and 1825 {cf. Stevenson, Birds of Norfolk, ii. pp. 240, 241).^ 

 There is some evidence of their having bred so lately as about 

 1840 at the mouth of the Trent (c/. Clarke and Eoebuck, Vert. 

 Fauna of Yorkshire, p. 72). The Avoset's mode of nesting is 

 much like that of the Stilt, and the eggs are hardly to be dis- 

 tinguished from those of the latter but by their larger size, the 

 bird being about as big as a Lapwing, white, with the exception 

 of its crown, the back of the neck, the inner scapulars, some of 

 the wing-coverts and the primaries, which are black, while the legs 

 are of a fine light blue. It seems to get its food by working its 

 biU from side to side in shallow pools, and catching the small 

 crustaceans or larvae of insects that may be swimming therein, but 

 not, as has been stated, by sweeping the surface of the mud or 

 sand — -a process that would speedily destroy the delicate bill by 

 friction. Two species of Avoset, R. americana and R. andina, are 

 found in the New World ; the former, which ranges so far to the 

 northward as the Saskatchewan, is distinguished by its light 

 cinnamon-coloured head, neck, and breast, and the latter, confined 

 so far as known to the mountain lakes of Chili, has no white on 

 the upper parts except the head and neck. Australia produces a 



1 Of. "Yarwhelp" (Godwit) and "Yaup" or " Wliaup " (Curlew). 

 " Barker " and "Clinker " seem to have been names used in Norfolk. 



- The same kind of lamentable destruction has of late been carried on in 

 Holland and Denmark, to the extirpation probably of the species in each 

 country. 



