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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 proportions 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 I'echasse. My speci- 

 men, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed only four 

 ounces and a quarter, though the naked part of the thigh 

 measured three inches and an half, and the legs four inches and 

 an half. Hence we may safely assert that these birds exhibit, 

 weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs of 

 any known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the most 

 long legged birds, and yet it bears no manner of proportion to 

 the hirnantopus ; for a cock flamingo weighs, at an average, about 

 four pounds avoirdupois ; and his legs and thighs measure usually 

 about twenty inches. But four pounds are fifteen times and a 

 fraction more than four ounces and one quarter ; and if four 

 ounces and a quarter have eight inches of legs, four pounds must 

 have one hundred and twenty inches and a fraction of legs ; viz. 

 somewhat more than ten feet ; such a monstrous proportion as 

 the world never saw ! l If you should try the experiment in 

 still larger birds the disparity would still increase. It must be 

 matter of great curiosity to see the stilt plover move ; to observe 

 how it can wield such a length of lever with such feeble muscles 

 as the thighs seem to be furnished with. At best one should 

 expect it to be but a bad walker : but what adds to the wonder 

 is that it has no back toe. Now without that steady prop to 

 support it's steps it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual 

 vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the true center of 

 gravity. 



The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny ; and, by an 

 aukward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and 

 pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor 

 Ray, in all their curious researches, either at home or abroad, 

 ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant never met with it in all Great- 

 Britain, but observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at 

 Paris. Hasselquist says that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn : 



1 [There is an obvious miscalculation here, corrected in Bell's edition. The 

 weight of similar structures varies as the cube of corresponding linear dimensions ; 

 White's comparison implies that it varies directly.] 



