OF SELBORNE. 355 



LETTER XLIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE,- May 7, 1779. 



IT is now more than forty years that I have paid some 

 attention to the ornithology of this district, without 

 being able to exhaust the subject : new occurrences 

 still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive. 



In the last week of last month five of those most 

 rare birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English 

 name, but known to naturalists by the terms of Himan- 

 topus, or Loripes, and Charadrius Himantopus 1 , were shot 

 upon the verge of Frinsham Pond, a large lake belong- 

 ing to the Bishop of Winchester, and lying between 

 Wolmer Forest, and the town of Farnham, in the county 

 of Surrey. The pond-keeper says there were three 

 brace in the flock; but that, after he had satisfied his 

 curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain unmolested. 

 One of these specimens I procured, and found the length 

 of the legs to be so extraordinary, that, at first sight, 

 one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened 

 on to impose on the credulity of the beholder : they 

 were legs in caricatura; and had we seen such propor- 

 tions on a Chinese or Japan screen we should have 

 made large allowances for the fancy of the draughtsman. 

 These birds are of the plover family, and might with 

 propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under 

 that idea, gives them the apposite name of L'Echasse. 

 My specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, 

 weighed only four ounces and a quarter; though the 

 naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a 

 half, and the legs four inches and a half. Hence we 



1 [Himantopus melanopterus, TEM.M.] 

 A A 2 



