80 BRITISH BIRDS. 



are largely increased during winter^ and it has been found in various 

 localities throughout the continent ; but no reliable evidence of its breeding 

 in South Africa has been obtained. It has been found both on the 

 Canary Islands and Madagascar. 



The Common Stilt has three very near allies : one of them [H. mexi- 

 canus), which is found on the American continent north of the equator, 

 is readily distinguished by the black on the back of the neck being con- 

 tinuous with the black of the back. On the American continent south of 

 the equator H. brasiUensis occurs, and in Australia and New Zealand 

 H. leucocephahis is found — in both of which the entire head is always white 

 and the back of the neck black, but separated by a broad white collar 

 from the black of the back, as in our bird, Avliich, when it has a white 

 head, has no black at the back of the neck. A fifth species [H. novce- 

 zelandiae) is entirely blackish in summer, and at all times of the year has 

 the tail black. 



The Stilt is essentially a bird of the marshes, though it never enters 

 the reeds. It is especially fond of salt-marshes, Avading in the shallow 

 w^ater outside the reed-beds, or running on the yellow Aveed (a species of 

 Alya) which floats in acres over the black treacherous mud between the 

 reeds and the open water. A few Stilts winter in the basin of the Medi- 

 terranean ; but most of them are migratory birds. Late in March or early 

 in April it arrives from its winter-quarters in Africa, at Gibraltar, INIalta, 

 and Greece, in small parties, which feed for a short time on the shore, but 

 soon pass on to their breeding-places. The lagoons on the western shores 

 of the Black Sea are special favourites of this charming bird; they are 

 large sheets of water, shut off from the sea by a long sand-bank or a row 

 of sand-islands, and genei'ally terminate on the land side in a great reed- 

 bed, at the far end of which a little stream runs into the lagoon. On 

 many of these lagoons, both north and south of Kustendji, the Stilt 

 breeds in considerable numbers. I have taken its eggs both at Lake Tusla 

 to the south and Lake Sinoe to the north. It is a somewhat late breeder 

 in this locality, and full clutches are rarely obtained before the first half 

 of June ; but in Spain (where the winters are so much milder and the 

 spring so much earlier) full clutches are to be found during the first half of 

 May. Col. Irby says that he has seen eggs from the marismas of the 

 Guadalquiver, where the Stilt breeds in great numbers, as early as the 

 2Sth of April. 



Few sights are more interesting to an English ornithologist than a 

 breeding colony of Stilts. If quietly approached, they may be watched 

 standing up to their knees in water, catching little tadpoles and water- 

 beetles, picking up floating shell-fish, or snapping at the gnats in the air, 

 or the water-spiders dancing on the surface of the lagoons. Perhaps it 

 looks most elegant as it trips daintily on the yellow ooze, which scarcely 



