AVOCET. 303 



white head and black tail, restricted, apparently, to the 

 high lakes (16,000 feet) in the Andes ; and R. novca- 

 hollandue, of Australia and New Zealand, which has the 

 head, throat, and chest of a deep chestnut-red.* 



The eggs, which are laid in a slight hollow scratched in 

 the bare ground, with little or no lining, f are generally 

 deposited in the month of May, and are, as a rule, three or 

 four in number ; five have been found, probably the united 

 produce of two females. In colour they are clay-buflf, 

 blotched and spotted with black, and measure about 2 in* 

 by 1*5 in. Naumanu says that incubation, in which both 

 sexes take part, lasts seventeen or eighteen days. It has 

 been suggested by Mr. Harting (Ibis, 1874, p. 248) that 

 Avocets feed their nestlings as Puffins do, by bringing food 

 crossivlse in their bills, and laying the latter close alongside 

 the open mandibles of the young, allowing them to snatch 

 the food sicleivays. 



The food of the Avocet consists of worms, aquatic insects, 

 and the thinner-skinned crustaceous animals, which these 

 birds search for on soft mud and sand. The peculiar marks 

 made by the singular form of the beaks of these birds in 

 the sand while searching for food with the convex side, are 

 recognizable, while their stooping mode of action, and the 

 character of the beak itself, have induced the provincial 

 names of Scooper and Cobbler's-awl Duck. The usual note 

 is a clear kuitt. 



The specimen from which the figure and description here 

 inserted were taken, was obtained in the London market in 

 the spring of 1814. The beak, black, about three inches 



* For an interesting monograph of this genus, see J. E. Harting, * Tije Ibis,' 

 1874, pp. 242-261. 



t Dr. Cullen says that he found nests of this species at Kustendje which 

 were built up of straws and stems to the height of six or eight inches ; and he 

 goes on to state that the downy nestling has the bill quite straight ; but this is 

 an error, for in specimens only a day or two old the bills are distinctly curved. 

 The Black-winged Stilt, however, also breeds at Kustendje, and was recently 

 (June, 1883) found there by Messrs. Seebohm and Young, with nests raised as 

 described ; and in this latter species the bill of the nestling is, naturally, 

 straight. It seems, therefore, possible that there may have been a mistake in 

 the identification of the nest-building species. 



