678 SCOLOPACID^E. 



of June, 1822, 1 was returning in the evening from fishing 

 upon Hickling Broad, when a bird of this species flew past 

 the boat within thirty yards. The legs were extended be- 

 hind, even more in proportion than those of a Heron ; the 

 wings were much arched ; the flight vigorous and regular ; 

 the colour and the length of limb made me guess what it 

 must be. I asked the fen-man who was with me what he 

 guessed it to be. He considered it a Ruff which had been 

 caught, as is sometimes the case in our marshes, by a horse- 

 hair snare, and had broken away with it. When I told 

 him that I believed it to be a very rare and valuable bird, 

 he wished to go in immediate pursuit ; but I overruled 

 that, as there was not more than half an hour's light re- 

 maining, and the bird, if shot at ineffectually, might leave 

 the country in the night. We searched for it early the 

 next morning, and found it precisely in the same place as 

 the evening before. When shot, it was standing in a shal- 

 low pool of water mid-leg deep, apparently snapping at 

 insects in the air as they buzzed round it. Since then a 

 pair was shot by Mr. Salmon, at Stoke Ferry, in the spring 

 of 1826 ; the female had eggs within her in a forward state ; 

 one of these last was in the collection of the late Mr. 

 Lombe." 



Mr. Gould, who has had opportunities of observing the 

 actions of birds of this genus in Australia, thus writes of 

 them : " Although the extreme length of the legs of this 

 bird, as compared with the small size of its body, would 

 seem incompatible with easy carriage and graceful deport- 

 ment, this in reality is not the case, for I never saw a bird 

 which combined more grace of movement and elegance of 

 appearance than the White-headed Stilt, which I, for the 

 first time, observed near Mr. Edward Uhr's station on the 

 banks of the river Mokai, where it was associated in small 

 flocks of from six to twenty in number, and which, by their 



