AVOCET. 243 
It must not be supposed that because my notes 
contain no record of examples seen or lilled from 
1853 to 1857, and again from 1857 to 1863, that there- 
fore none appeared on our coasts during those periods, 
but undoubtedly they must have been scarce; and this 
species can only be regarded now as an_ irregular 
migrant. Of such as I have been able to ascertain 
the exact dates, it will be seen that only three were 
obtained in autumn (September), the remainder in 
spring and summer, between March and July, but 
chiefly in the month of May. 
It is much to be regretted that our earlier local 
authors afford us so little information as to the habits of 
this most interesting bird—whether for instance, like the 
terns, ruffs, and redshanks, they were summer visitants 
only, or, leaving their breeding grounds when the young 
were able to fly, spent the winter months on the coast, 
at the mouths of our tidal rivers. The avocet, however, 
is specially mentioned in Ray’s edition of Willughby’s 
“Ornithology,” as frequenting “our eastern coasts in 
Suffolk and Norfolk in winter time.” The bird observed 
by Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear, at Winterton, in 
1816, is said to have flown round in circles “uttering 
a shrill note [twit, twit], and then alighted in the 
middle of a pool of water, on which it floated; then 
took several turns on wing, and again alighted on the 
water, where it sat motionless.” 
It has been questioned by many writers whether 
these birds are really able to swim, but on this point 
I can quote a high authority, Mr. Osbert Salvin, 
who, in his notes “On the Sea-birds and Waders of 
the Pacific coast of Guatemala” (“ Ibis,’ 1865, p. 193), 
says of the American species (Recurvirostra americana) 
“avocets often swim ;” and with their semi-palmated 
feet, so admirably adapted for traversing the most 
treacherous swamps, there seems no possible reason 
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