746 



HIMANT PUS 



great salt marsh, the Runn of Cutch, but in the Dec- 

 can. It is met with in Egypt, and probably along 

 the margin of the desert to the Atlantic coast of 

 Africa ; and specimens have been sent from Brazil, 

 differing very little from those that inhabit and breed 

 in Europe. There is one circumstance connected 

 with the differences of its appearance in different 

 countries, which shows that it is more a bird of the 

 warm latitudes, which have seasons of wet and drought, 

 than of the temperate or the cold. In India it is 

 much larger than in Europe, the length being at 

 least six inches. Those which have been brought 

 from Egypt and from Brazil, are also larger than the 

 European ; and even those from the south of Europe 

 are larger than those from the north. We have 

 already explained, in the article HERON, why any 

 animal should be considered as most at home in that 

 country where it is most fully developed ; and the 

 stilt furnishes a proof of what was there stated. 



Stilt. 



In all these localities it is a gregarious or social 

 bird, occurring in flocks which, from the arid nature 

 of the places which they inhabit, are rather discursive 

 ~ id often on the wing. In respect of food, it appears 

 to be partial to miscellaneous vegetable matters, the 

 larves of aquatic insects, and very small shells have 

 been found in the stomachs of those that have been 

 examined. 



In all the west of Europe they are migrant birds, 

 and though they are not uncommon in the north of 

 France and the Netherlands, where they appear to 

 arrive by the way of the Danube to the Rhine, they 

 are by no means so common in that part of France 

 which is most directly cut off from the range of east- 

 ern birds by the Alps. The few that have appeared 

 in England have been only one at a time ; and there 

 is no account, or even probability, of their breeding 

 in this country. They have, however, bred in the 

 north of France ; but their principal breeding-places 

 in Europe are the marshes on the lower Danube and 

 in the south of Russia, though at certain seasons of 

 the year they appear in flocks about the salt lakes and 

 salt marshes of Hungary. Their nests are under- 

 stood to be in the closest herbage of the marshes ; 

 but though they flock they breed so obscurely that 

 their habits at those times are little known. The nest 

 is said, however, to be constructed very rudely of a 



few withered stems and leaves, or other vegetable 

 debris ; the eggs being five or six in number, of a 

 yellowish colour spotted with reddish brown, and 

 about the size of those of a partridge. 



BLACK HEADED STILT (H. nigncollis). This is 

 an American species, differing in some particulars 

 from that of the east, and as we have the advan- 

 tage of Wilson's observation and description of it, 

 it is much better known than that species, of the 

 existence of which naturalists have been so much 

 longer aware. 



The black headed stilt measures about fourteen 

 inches from the tip of the bill to the extremity of the 

 tail, and the extent of the wings is about twenty-eight 

 inches ; the bill is about three inches long, slightly 

 curved upward, and tapers to a very fine point. 

 The upper mandible is rounded on the culmen, the 

 nostrils are in the form of slits, but open, and the 

 whole bill is of a black colour ; the front of the head, 

 a streak under the eye, and a spot behind it, and also 

 the whole of the under parts, are pure white, which 

 is also the colour of the actual feathers of the back, 

 the rump, and the wing-coverts, but these are con- 

 cealed by the mantle of long feathers issuing from 

 the scapulars ; a streak in 'front of the eye, the ear- 

 coverts, the back of the head, the back-neck, the 

 long feathers on the scapulars, and the quills of 

 the wings, are deep black with rich reflections of 

 green ; the tail is square at the end, or very slightly 

 forked, and the under coverts extend as far as the 

 feathers ; the legs are of a fine pale carmine red, the 

 tarsi four inches and a half long, and the tibiae naked 

 for a considerable distance above the tarsal joints ; 

 they are remarkably slender, and can bear to be bent 

 to a considerable curve without injury ; the feet are 

 the same as in the eastern species ; the wings are 

 very long, extending beyond the tail nearly two 

 inches, and they are very much pointed ; there are 

 some differences as to the distribution of white and 

 black upon the neck ; and the female, as is the case 

 with the eastern species, is considerably smaller than 

 the male. The stomach of this bird is a true gizzard, 

 that is to say, it is very strong and muscular, though 

 it appears to feed much more on shelled mollusca 

 and coleopterous insects than upon vegetable sub- 

 stances. 



Wilson appears not only to have examined it with 

 greater care, but to have formed a more correct esti- 

 mate of its place and occupation in nature than hafl 

 been done by the naturalists of Europe ; and as there 

 is a very close resemblance between the two in every 

 thing save colour, and not very much difference in 

 that, we may consider the same observations as being 

 applicable to both. 



He considers it as coming nearer to the avoset 

 than to any other bird ; and if the two are carefully 

 compared it will be found that while the avoset 

 brings the series to the water from the soft billed 

 birds, the snipes and godwits, the stilt brings it from 

 the harder billed birds, the plovers and sandpipers. 

 The avoset wades, and scoops the mud in the runs of 

 water, finding its food by the touch of the bill more 

 than by the sight of the eye ; while, though the stilt 

 is also a wader, it does not scoop the mud, or feed by 

 the touch of the bill, but catches its prey by sight in 

 the water, in the air over it, or on the aquatic plants. 

 The length of the avoset's neck, as compared with 

 that of its legs, points out that it is fitted for feeding 



