THE AVOCET. 433 



are frequent in the winter on the shores of this king- 

 dom ; 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 

 two 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 Eye 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 with throughout a great part of the 

 Old World, and is said to be not unfrequent in Holland 

 and France. A writer of the latter country says that "by 

 aid of its webbed feet it is enabled to traverse, without 

 sinking, the softest and wettest mud : this it searches 

 with its curved bill, and when it has discovered any prey, 

 a worm for instance, it throws it adroitly into the air, and 

 catches it with its beak." 



* It is not a little singular that the Spoonbill, a bird which 

 strongly contrasts with the Avocet in the form of its bill, ploughs 

 the sand from one side to another, while hunting for its food. 



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