THE AVOCET 



FAMILY SCOLOPACID.^ 

 THE AVOCET 



RECURVIROSTRA 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 appHed to two 

 several collectors in Norfolk, once the headquarters of the Avocet, 

 to know if they could procure me a specimen, I was told by one that 

 they were not seen 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 live pounds. In Ray's time it was not unfrequent on 

 the eastern maritime coasts. Small flocks still arrive in May and now 

 and again in the autumn, but collectors never allow them to breed. 

 They used to rest on the flat shores of Kent and Sussex. Sir 

 Thomas Browne says of it : ' Avoseta, called shoeing horn, a tall 

 black and white bird, with a bill semicircularly reclining or bowed 

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

 summer marsh bird, and not unfrequent in marsh land.' Pennant, 

 writing of the same bird, says : ' These birds are frequent in the 

 winter on the shores of this kingdom ; in Gloucestershire, at the 

 Severn's mouth ; and sometimes on the lakes of Shropshire. We 

 have seen them in considerable numbers in the breeding season near 

 Fossdike Wash, in Lincolnshire. Like the Lapwing, when disturbed, 

 they flew over our heads, carrying their necks and long legs quite 

 extended, and made a shrill noise [twit) twice repeated, during the 

 whole time. The country people for this reason call them Yelpers, 

 and sometimes distinguish them by the name of Picarini. They 

 feed on worms and insects, which they suck with their bills out of 

 the sand ; their search after food is frequently to be discovered 

 on our shores by alternate semicircular marks in the sand, which 

 show their progress.^ They lay three or four eggs, about the size of 

 those of a Pigeon, white, tinged with green and marked with large 

 black spots.' Even so recent an authority as Yarrell remembers 

 having found in the marshes near Rye a young one of this species, 

 which appeared to have just been hatched ; he took it up in his 

 hands, while the old birds kept flying round him. 



The Avocet is met witli throughout a great part of the Old \\'orld, 



1 It is not a little singular that the Sjioonbill, a l)ird which strongly con- 

 trasts with the Avocet in the form of its bill, ploughs the sand from one side 

 to another, while hunting for its food. 



