172 THE GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family CHARADEIID^}. Genus KECURVIKOSTBA. 



Subfamily HIMANTOPODINJE. 



COMMON AVOCET. 



EECURVIKOSTEA AVOCETTA. Linnaus. 

 PLATE XXIV. 



Recurvirostra avocetta, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 256 (1766) ; MacgiU. Brit. B. iv, p. 306 

 (1852) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. 577, pi. 534 (1875) ; Yarrell, Brit. B. ed. 4 hi. p. 

 299 (1883) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. pt. xiii. (1890) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs 

 Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 239 (1894) ; Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. p. 185 (1896); 

 Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 326 (1896). 



Himantopus avocetta (Linn.), Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 74 (1885) ; Seebohm, 

 Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 129, pi. 38 (1896). 



Geographical distribution. British: The Avocet is now an irregular 

 straggler on migration to England, still more accidental elsewhere. A melancholy 

 interest attaches to the Avocet, inasmuch that this curious bird once bred 

 regularly in the British Islands, but has long been exterminated as a nesting 

 species by the destruction of its favourite haunts and the persecution of man. 

 For nearly seventy years the Avocet has ceased to breed in this country. It 

 formerly bred in the marshes and on those parts of the coast suited to its 

 requirements, in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, and Sussex ; and it is to 

 these old haunts the occasional visitors seem most attracted, usually making 

 their appearance in spring, as was once their regular practice ; less frequently in 

 autumn. Still earlier records show that it frequented the Severn district and 

 Staffordshire. The last colony of Avocets of which we have any evidence was 

 near Salthouse, in the fens (182225). This was destroyed by the taking of the 

 eggs for puddings, and the birds for their plumage to make artificial flies for 

 fishermen ! The bird appears to have been an accidental visitor only elsewhere, 

 especially in the north and west. About half-a-dozen examples only have been 

 recorded from Scotland, where it has been met with, however, as far north as the 

 Orkneys and Shetlands, and even in the Outer Hebrides. It is of only accidental 

 occurrence in Ireland, chiefly in the south, though once recorded from the estuary 

 of the Moy in the north-west. Foreign : Southern Patearctic and Ethiopian 

 regions, Oriental region in winter. It breeds in Europe on some of the islands 

 off the Dutch and Danish coasts, on the marshes at the delta of the lihone, in the 

 marisuias of Southern Spain, the valley of the Danube, notably, it is said, in the 



