Ne lw 
SWI SULTE: 913 
to its breadth in the heavy-bodied and comparatively short-winged 
Alcide. 
STILT, Longshanks or Long-Legged Plover, a bird so called 
for reasons obvious to any one who has seen it, since, though 
no bigger than a Snipe, the length of its legs (their bare part 
measuring 8 inches), in proportion to the size of its body, exceeds 
that of any other bird’s. The first name, a rendering of the French 
Echasse, given in 1760 by Brisson (Orn. v. p. 33), seems to have 
been formally conferred by Rennie in 1831; but, recommended by 
BLACK-NECKED AMERICAN STILT, (After Gosse.) 
its definiteness and brevity, it has wholly supplanted the others.? 
The bird is the Charadrius himantopus? of Linneeus, the Himantopus 
candidus or melanopterus of modern writers, and belongs to the group 
Limicolx, having been usually placed in the Family Scolopacidz, 
and is certainly not very distant from [ecurvirostra (AVOSET). 
The very peculiar form of the Stilt naturally gave Buffon occasion 
(Hist. Nat. Ois. viii. pp. 114-116) to lament the shortcomings of 
? According to Wilson (Am. Orn. vii. p. 50) it was already in use in 1813 
in his adopted country ; but it must have been through adaptation from the 
French, or coincidence, and not, like OysTrR-caTcHER (p. 682, note 1), an 
English name that had been carried thither. The old and perhaps singular 
application of Ox-EYE to this bird has been already mentioned (p. 680, note 2), 
* The possible confusion by Pliny’s transcribers of this word with Hamatopus 
has been already mentioned (p. 682, note 2). Himantopus, with its equivalent 
Loripes, ** by an awkward metaphor,” as remarked by Gilbert White, ‘‘ implies 
that the legs are as slender and pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather,” 
58 
