THE AVOCET. 



EECURVIROSTRA AVOCETTA. 



General plumage white ; crown, nape, scapulars, lesser wing-coverts, and 

 primaries, black ; bill black ; irides reddish brown ; feet bluish ash. Length 

 eighteen inches. Eggs olive-brown, blotched and spotted with dusky. 



This bird has "become so rare, that having recently applied 

 to two several collectors in Norfolk, once the head-quarters 

 of the Avocet, to know if they could procure nie a speci- 

 men, I was told by one that they were not seeii oftener 

 than once in seven years — by the other, that it was very 

 rare, and if attainable at all could not be purchased for 

 less than five pounds. In Ray's time it was not unfrequent 

 on the eastern maritime coasts. Sir Thomas Browne says 

 of it: ^^ Avoseta, called shoeing horn, a tall black and 

 white bird, with a bill semicircularly rechning or bowed 

 upward ; so that it is not easy to conceive how it can feed ; 

 a summer mnrsh bird, and not unfrequent in marsh land." 

 Pennant, writing of the same bird, says : " These birds 



