NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 2O/ 



plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives them the apposite 

 name of t'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, 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 kimantopus ; 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 eight 

 inches of legs, four pounds must have one hundred and twenty 

 inches and a fraction of legs, viz., somewhat more than ten 

 feet ; such a monstrous proportion as the world never saw ! 

 If you should try the experiment in still larger birds the dis- 

 parity would still increase. It must be matter of great curi- 

 osity to see the stilt plover move ; to observe how it can wield 

 such a length of lever with such feeble muscles as the thighs 

 seem to be furnished with. At best one should expect it to be 

 but a bad walker : but what adds to the wonder is that it has 

 no back toe. Now without that steady prop to support its steps 

 it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations, and 

 seldom able to preserve the true centre of gravity. 



The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny ; and, by 

 an awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and 

 pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby 

 nor Ray, in all their curious researches, either at home or 

 abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant never met with it in 

 all Great Britain, but observed it often in the cabinets of the 

 curious at Paris. Hasselquist says that it migrates to Egypt 

 in the autumn : and a most accurate observer of nature has 

 assured me that he has found it on the banks of the streams 

 in Andalusia. 



Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great 

 Britain. From all these relations it plainly appears that these 

 long-legged plovers are birds of south Europe, and rarely visit 

 our island ; and when they do, are wanderers and stragglers, 



