BLACK ^yINGED STILT. 



)61 



were much arched ; the flight vigorous and regular ; the 

 colour and the lenafth of limb made me miess what it must 

 be. I asked the fenman who was with me what he guessed 

 it to be. He considered it a RuflT which had been caught, 

 as is sometimes the case in our marshes by a horsehair snare, 

 and had broken away with it. When I told him that I be- 

 lieved it to be a very rare and valuable bird he wished to go 

 in immediate pursuit ; but I over-ruled that, as there was not 

 more than half an hour's light remaining, and the bird, if shot 

 at ineffectually, might leave the country in the night. We 

 searched for it early the next morning and found it precisely 

 in the same place as the evening before. When .shot, it was 

 standing in a shallow pool of water mid leg deep, apparently 

 snapping at insects in the air as they buzzed round it. Since 

 then a pair was shot by Mr. Salmon at Stoke Ferry, in the 

 spring of 1826, the female had eggs Avithin her in a forward 

 state ; one of these last is now in the collection of Mr. 

 Lombe," 



My own specimen, from which the figure and description 

 here given was derived, was obtained in the London market 

 in July 1824, and was sent up for sale from Lincolnshire: 

 while this bird was in the hands of Mr. Leadbeater for 

 preservation, another was received from Norfolk. Li the 

 intestines of this last specimen, which I examined, was a 

 species of tape worm, six inches in length, broad, flat, and 

 jointed. 



Interesting accounts of an American Stilt, with a black 

 neck, will be found in the works of Wilson, Mr, J. J. Au- 

 dubon, and Dr. Nuttall, with which, in its habits, the Euro- 

 pean species most likely agrees. Our bird appears to prefer 

 the margins of lakes rather than the sides of rivers : it lays 

 four eggs, which have been figured by Thieneman, and are 

 represented of a pale blue colour, blotched and streaked with 

 ash green, and dark brown ; one inch nine lines in length, by 



VOL. II. 2 o 



