BLACK-WINGED STILT. 3 



wings is not very rapid, but the line of flight is straight ; now and then the bird 

 skims along for a short distance with outspread motionless wings ; and whilst 

 thus sailing slowly along it has a curious habit of dropping its legs ; but this 

 action is performed so high in the air that the bird can scarcely be making 

 preparations to alight, and may perhaps only be trying to attract attention to 

 itself. All this time the birds are noisy enough. It has two cries of anxiety at 

 the nest — one a sharp rapidly repeated kit, kit, kit, or hit, hit, hit, and the other a 

 sort of rattling note, resembling the syllable petir-r-re. As the wily bird succeeds 

 in luring the intruder away from its treasures, it does not fly so near him ; the 

 former note only is heard, and is less rapidly and less anxiously repeated ; the 

 final t is omitted or is inaudible, and the note sounds like kee, kee, kee. 



"When Mr. Young and I were in the Dobrudscha in 1883, we fovmd a small 

 colony of seven nests on the 7th of June. The first nest was somewhat isolated, 

 built amongst the very outermost straggling reeds, and two or three birds were 

 standing in the water not very far from it. It was very flat, and stood from two 

 to three inches above the level of the water; the slight hollow Avas about six 

 inches across, and the nest was about eight inches in diameter at the surface 

 of the water. It was entirely composed of broken bits of old dead reeds, the 

 slenderest pieces being reserved for the lining. Twenty yards further on was 

 the main colony, consisting of five similar nests, built on the bare black mud 

 between the reeds and the water, and distributed over a space of perhaps twenty 

 or thirty yards ; whilst the seventh nest was again somewhat isolated, built in the 

 water at least six feet away from the reeds, and placed upon a heap of yellow 

 ooze, which had evidently been collected for a foundation. One nest contained a 

 single ess: ; the other six had the full clutch of four : all the eggs were fresh 

 except one clutch, which was slightly incubated." 



Messrs. A. Chapman and W. J. Buck found the Stilt breeding, in company 

 with the Avocet, on the marisma of the Lower Guadalquivir. They write*: — 

 " After heavy rains in April, the mud and water in the marisma were 

 unpleasantly deep for either riding or walking — we had now abandoned the 

 punts ; and on the low islands many thousands of eggs had been destroyed by the 

 rising of the water. A great variety of birds were now nesting, Stilts and Avocets 

 being, perhaps, the most conspicuous. We found a few eggs of both on the mud- 

 flats to-day (May 5th), but a few days later they were in thousands. The Stilts 

 make a fairly solid nest of dead black stalks of tamarisk, &c., and lay four richlj- 

 marked eggs, all arranged points inwards." 



* ' Wild Spain,' pp. 86, 87. 



