356 The Black-necked Stilt 



the immediate neighborhood, for they were continually flying about and 

 calling. They had a way of alighting on the mud, where, with bent legs 

 and drooping wings, their whole bodies would quiver as though the ague 

 of the marshes had entered their systems. Standing there and looking 

 over the expanse of shallow ponds and treacherous mud-flats, with the 

 heat beating down with unbelievable force and with mosquitoes and green- 

 headed flies struggling among themselves for every available spot where 

 they might sting the soft-skinned intruder, my enthusiasm waned, so we 

 called it a day's work and returned to the yacht. 



Audubon writes that while the females are sitting, the males pay 

 them much attention, "acting in this respect like those 

 Behavior of the American Avocet, watching the approach of in- 



truders, giving chase to the Red-winged Starlings, as 

 well as to the Fishing and American Crows, and assailing the truant young 

 gunner or egger. When there is no appearance of annoyance, they some- 

 times roam as far as the sea-beach. When the young are hatched, they 

 leave the nest, and follow their parents through the grass, but on the 

 appearance of danger squat and remain motionless." 



Stilts are found in summer at various points up the Mississippi 

 Valley. Barrows regards them as rare in Michigan and Kumlien reports 

 them as rare stragglers in Wisconsin, but many observers record them 

 as common in Minnesota. About the alkaline lakes and ponds of the 

 Great Basin, farther west, they are continually seen, often in company 

 with the Avocet. In some of the irrigated valleys of California these 

 birds are very plentiful. 



The food of the Stilt consists of small water-snails, insects, worms, 

 and young fry of fishes. "I have frequently observed 

 Food them," says Audubon, "running after flies, and 



attempting to seize the smaller Libellulse [dragon- 

 flies]. When wounded so as to fall on the water, they are unable to dive, 

 but on reaching the shore they run nimbly off and hide themselves." 

 Although this large wader is now very rare in the eastern United 

 States it still persists in goodly numbers in the West and South, and under 

 the protection that seems assured to it by the new Federal migratory-bird 

 law, the species should long survive to give grace and beauty to many 

 of the waste places of the continent. 



Most of the individuals of this species leave the United States in 

 autumn, but a few remain along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. 



Classification and Distribution 



The Black-necked Stilt belongs to the Order Limicola? and the Family Recur- 

 virostridcc. Its scientific name is Hiinantopus mcxicanus. It ranged originally over 

 all North and Central America and the northern part of South America. It breeds 

 from Oregon, Colorado, and the Gulf Coast, southward throughout the West Indies 

 and Mexico to Brazil and Peru, and winters from the southwestern border of the 

 United States southward. 



This and other Educational Leaflets are for sale, at 5 cents each, by the National Association of 

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