914 STILT— STINK-BIRD 



Nature in producing an animal with such " enormous defects," — 

 its long legs in particular, he supposed, scarcely allowing it to reach 

 the ground with its bill. But he failed to notice the flexibility of 

 its proportionately long neck, and admitted that he was ill-informed 

 as to its habits. No doubt, if he had enjoyed even so slight an 

 opportunity as occurred to a chance observer {Ihi&, 1859, p. 397), 

 he would have allowed that its structure and ways were in complete 

 conformity, for the bird obtains its food by wading in shallow water 

 and seizing the insects that fly over or float upon its surface or the 

 small crustaceans that swim beneath, for which purpose its slender 

 extremities are, as might be expected, admirably adapted. Widely 

 spread over Asia, North Africa and Southern Europe, the Stilt has 

 many times visited Britain — though always as a straggler, for it is 

 not known to breed to the northward of the Danube valley, — and 

 its occurrence in Scotland (near Dumfries) was noticed by Sibbald 

 {Scot. Illustr. II. iii. p. 18)^ so long ago as 1684. It chiefly resorts 

 to pools or lakes with a margin of mud, on which it constructs a 

 slight nest, banked round or just raised above the level so as to 

 keep its eggs dry {lUs, 1859, p. 360) ; but sometimes they are laid 

 in a tuft of grass. They are four in number, closely resembling 

 those of the Avoset, and, except in size, the Oyster-catcher. The 

 bird has the head, neck and lower parts white, the back and wings 

 glossy black, the irides red and the bare part of the legs pink. In 

 America the genus has two representatives, one closely resembling 

 that just described, but rather smaller and with a black crown 

 and nape. This is H. mexicanus or nigricoUis,^ and occurs from New 

 England to the middle of South America, beyond which it is re- 

 placed l)y H. hmsiliensis, which has the crown white. The Sandwich 

 Islands appear to be the home of a species peculiar to them, H. 

 hnudseni. The Stilt inhabiting India is now recognized to be H. 

 candidus, but Australia possesses a distinct species, H. leucocephalus 

 or novai-hollandise, which also occurs in New Zealand, though that 

 country has in addition a species peculiar to it, H. novx-zelandim or 

 melas, difl'ering from all the rest by assuming in the breeding-season 

 wholly black plumage, to say nothing of a possible third species, the 

 H. albicollis of Sir W. Buller. Australia, however, presents another 

 form, which is the type of the genus Cladorhynchus, and diff'ers from 

 Eimantopus both in its style of plumage (the male having a broad 

 bay pectoral belt), in its shorter tarsi and in having the toes 

 (though, as in the Stilts' feet, three in number on each foot) 

 webbed as in the Avosets. 



STINK-BIRD, a name given to the HoACTZiN (p. 421) : STINK- 

 POT, STINKER, sailors' names for some of the Petrels (p. 710). 



1 Sibbald was unfortunate in his drauglitsman, who gave the bird a hind-toe. 



2 This species was made known to Ray by Sloane, who met with it in 

 Jamaica, where in his day it was called " Longlegs." 



