IC1.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



247 



structure, position, and number of their stomachs, or maws, 

 there seems to be good reason to suppose that this and the 

 two former species ruminate or chew the cud like many 

 quadrupeds ! 



SELBORNK. 



LETTER XCI. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DA.INES BARRINOTON. 



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 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, 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 I'echasse. 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. 



