NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 247 
fiber RX LT X. 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, May 7th, 1779. 
IT is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention 
to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the 
subject : new occurences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept 
alive. 
In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, too 
uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to 
naturalists by the terms of Azmantopus, or loripes, and charadrius 
himantopus,* were shot upon the verge of Frinsham-pond, a large 
lake belonging to the Bishop of Winchester, and lving between 
Woolmer-forest and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. 
The pond keeper says there were three brace in the flock: but, that 
after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain 
unmolested. One of these specimens I procured, and found the 
length of the legs to be so extraordinary, that, at first sight, one 
might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on to impose . 
on the credulity of the beholder: they were legs in caricatura ; 
and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen 
we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the draughts- 
man. These birds are of the plover family, and might with propriety 
be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives them the 
apposite name of /’echasse. My specimen, when drawn and stuffed 
with pepper, weighed only four ounces and a quarter, though the 
naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a half, and the 
legs four inches and a half. Hence we may safely assert that these 
birds exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length 
of legs of any known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of 
the most long-legged birds, and yet it bears no manner of pro- 
portion to the hzmantopus, for a cock flamingo weighs, at an 
* “ Himantopedes loripedes quidam quibus serpendo ingredi naturaest.” Iuavrorovs, 
name of a tribe of Athiopians, used by Pliny. 
Himantopus melanopterus of modern ornithelogists. It has been known as an 
occasional visitant to Britain since the time of Sibbald, but may yet be considered as 72? 
of cur rarest species. We have no good detailed account of its habits. 
