252 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XLIX. 



SELBORNE, May jth, 1779. 



IT is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention 

 to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust 

 the subject : new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries 

 are kept alive. 



In the last week 1 of last month five of those most rare birds, too 

 uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to 

 naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or loripes, and charadrius 

 himantopus, 1 were shot upon the verge of Frinsham-pond, a large 

 lake belonging to the Bishop of Winchester, and lying between 

 Wolmer-forest and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. 

 The pond keeper says there were three brace in the flock : but, 

 that after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the sixth to 

 remain unmolested. One of these specimens I procured, and 

 found the length of the legs to be so extraordinary, that, at first 

 sight, one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on 

 to impose on the credulity of the beholder : they were legs in 

 caricatura ; and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or 

 Japan screen we should have made large allowances for the fancy 

 of the draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, and 

 might with propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under 

 that idea, gives them the apposite name of Vechasse. My specimen, 

 when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed only four ounces 

 and a quarter, though the naked part of the thigh measured three 

 inches and a half, and the legs four inches and a half. Hence 

 we may safely assert that these birds exhibit, weight for inches, 

 incomparably the greatest length of legs of any known bird. The 

 flamingo, for instance, is one of the most long-legged birds, and yet 

 it bears no manner of proportion to the himantopus ; for a cock 

 flamingo weighs, at an average, about four pounds avoirdupois ; 

 and his legs and thighs measure usually about twenty inches. 

 But four pounds are fifteen times and a fraction more than four 

 ounces, and one quarter ; and if four ounces and a quarter have 



