AVOCET. 237 



Mr. Harting who, under shelter of a sea wall, had 

 on one occasion the rare chance of observing the actions 

 of three greenshanks feeding on a mud-flat, remarks 

 ("Birds of Middlesex/' p. 181), "they placed the bill 

 upon the surface, the under mandible almost parallel 

 with the mud, and as they advanced, scooped from side 

 to side after the fashion of the avocet, leaving a curious 

 zigzag l^tie impressed upon the mud." Their food 

 consists of mollusks, insects, and small Crustacea. 



RECURVTROSTRA AVOCETTA, Linnams. 

 AYOCET. 



When examining a recently killed specimen of the 

 Avocet, so great a prize now a days to the local col- 

 lector, it seems hard to believe that such a remarkable 

 species should have bred regularly in this county until 

 within the last half century. Yet that this was the 

 case we know from the living testimony of both sports- 

 men and professional gunners, in whose younger days 

 this bird was comparatively common. Sir Thomas 

 Browne, unfortunately, gives scarcely any information 

 as to the localities frequented by it in his time, merely 

 speaking of the " shoeing-horn " as " a summer marsh- 

 bird and not unfrequent in Marshland,"* from which, 

 however, one may infer that it was then a denizen of the 

 extreme western side of the county as well as of the 

 coast-line to the north and east. From later authors 



* In a letter to Dr. Merrett in 1668 (Wilkin's edition, vol. i., 

 p. 400), Sir Thomas describes this bird as "a shoeing-horn or 

 barker, from the figure of the bill and barking note ; a long made 

 bird, of white and blackish colour ; fin footed ; a marsh bird ; and 

 not rare some times of the year in Marshland." 



