a CHARADRIIDAE 277 
The scream in the breeding season is often quite deafening, but at 
other times these wary birds are seldom noisy. Their flight is 
powerful, and they can swim and dive. The billis orange and the 
feet flesh-coloured in this species, as well as in 1. longirostris of the 
Moluccas, Papuasia, Australia, and New Zealand, with longer bill 
and entirely black primaries. H. lewcopus of Chili, Patagonia, and 
the Falklands, has a black lower back and pale feet ; H. palliatus 
(with its races frazari, galapagensis, and durnfordt), ranging from 
Nova Scotia and California to Patagonia, has a brown mantle. Of 
the perfectly black or brownish-black species, H. niger, of both 
coasts of the North Pacific, has pale flesh-coloured feet ; H. moquini, 
of the Ethiopian Region, the Canaries, and Madeira, has them deep 
red; H. ater, found from Peru to Patagonia and the Falklands, has 
the scarlet bill compressed and upturned ; H. wnicolor of Australia 
and New Zealand has the feet brick-red. This genus has three 
toes, as has the remarkable Jbhidorhynchus struthersi, with long 
decurved red bill and greenish-grey feet, found from Turkestan to 
China, and in the Himalayas. The front of the head is black, 
margined laterally with white ; the upper parts and neck are grey, 
with white on the wings and outer rectrices, and black undulations 
on the tail, which has the tip and coverts mostly black ; the under 
parts are white with a black gorget. The bill is black in the young. 
The note is whistling, the habits are like those of an Oyster-catcher, 
while islands in stony or sandy rivers furnish breeding sites.’ 
Himantopus contains the extraordinarily long-legged Stilts, 
of which H. candidus visits Britain and Northern Europe, but 
breeds only in the southern parts, including Hungary. It also 
nests in India and Ceylon, and in Africa—though chiefly in the 
north. In the cold season it reaches Timor, New Zealand, and 
elsewhere. The head, long neck, lower back, and under surface 
are white, the remaining parts greenish-black ; the iris is carmine, 
the legs are pink. Females are browner above, while immature 
males have the crown and nape black or brownish. The note is 
clear and reiterated, the habits are Plover-like, but the nest, placed 
on mud or in grass-tufts, is more substantial than in those birds, 
and contains four olive eggs with black scrawls or blotches. 
Whether searching the shallows for insects or other food, hover- 
ing overhead with dangling feet, or flying with them outstretched, 
the appearance is equally remarkable. H. mexicanus of temperate 
1 See W. W. Cordeaux, Jdis, 1894, p. 374; 1897, pp. 563-564. 
