300 scolopacidyE. 



slender, pointed, and flexible, having very much the appear- 

 ance of a thin piece of elastic whalebone. The semi- 

 palmated feet are well adapted for supporting the bird on 

 the soft mud which it frequents ; but it is a mistake to 

 suppose that the Avocet cannot swim with ease, when the 

 occasion requires, and it frequently wades into the water up 

 to its belly. Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear say, in their 

 Catalogue of Norfolk and Suffolk Birds, respecting one 

 which they saw in the breeding-season of 1816 on the 

 marshes of Winterton, and which had young, — *' This bird 

 made several circles round us, uttering a shrill note, 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." 



The Avocet was formerly a regular visitor to our shores, 

 and bred in considerable numbers in suitable localities. 

 Sir Thomas Browne, in 1668, describes it as " a shoeing 

 horn or barker, from the figure of the bill and barking note ; 

 a long made bird of white and blackish colour ; fin footed ; 

 a marsh bird ; and not rare some times of the year in 

 Marshland." Up to the beginning of the present century 

 the bird was still abundant in several localities on the east 

 coast of England, and in Gough's edition (1806) of Cam- 

 den's ' Britannia,' enlarged by the addition of notes from 

 Pennant and others, is a statement (ii. p. 271) that " oppo- 

 site Fosdyke Wash [Lincolnshire] during summer are vast 

 numbers of Avosettas, called there Yclpcrs, from their cry 

 as they hover over the sportsman's head like Lapwings." 

 Mr. Hugh Reid, of Doncaster, informed Mr. A. C More, 

 in a letter dated June 1st, 1861, that so recently as about 

 twenty years prior to that date an Avocet's eggs were taken 

 at the mouth of the Trent, where that river divides York- 

 shire from Lincolnshire. Drainage of the marshes, and per- 

 secution by gunners and egg-gatherers, did their work in the 

 favourite haunts of this conspicuous species, both in Lin- 

 colnshire and in Norfolk, and the occurrence in the year 

 1816 at Winterton, was probably the last date of the breed- 

 ing of the Avocet in that locality. At Horsey, as Mr. 



