86 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 



in the middle, and are of a pale yellowish-green colour, spotted 

 all over irregularly with dark brown with intermingled blotches 

 of light purplish-grey ; the spots and blotches being more nume- 

 rous at the larger end. 



198. AVOCET (Recurvirostra avocetta). 

 Butterflip, Scooper, Yelper, Cobbler's Awl, Crooked-bill, Cob- 

 bler's Awl Duck. Fast verging on extinction. In Sir Thomas 

 Browne's time it was not at all uncommon ; but of late years 

 but seldom recorded as having been " obtained," or met with. 

 If only people weren't so fond of "obtaining" our rare birds. 

 But now-a-days, when every third person has a gun, the appear- 

 ance of a "rare bird" is enough to set half a village off in 

 pursuit, and the great object of hundreds throughout the country 

 seems just to be to destroy the casual feathered visitor, however 

 interesting it may be or whatever claims it might seem to possess 

 on our hospitality. The Avocet's bill and plumage are enough to 

 point it out for slaughter, and so, slaughtered it has been. 

 It used to breed in Sussex and Norfolk. " The nest is said to 

 be a small hole in the drier parts of extensive marshes. The 

 eggs are said to be only two in number, of a clay-coloured 

 brown, spotted and speckled with black." 



199. BLACK- WINGED STILT (Ilimantopns melanopterus). 

 Long-legged Plover, Long-Legs, Long- Shanks, Stilt Plover. 

 Not so very uncommon as a visitor ; but still, strictly speaking, 

 only accidental in its appearance here. 



200. BLACK-TAILED GODWIT (Limosa melanura}. 

 Red Godwit Snipe, Jadreka Snipe, Red Godwit, Yarwhelp, 

 Yarwhip, Shrieker. Another of those birds which two or three 

 generations back were exceedingly more abundant than now: 

 proportionately esteemed, too, as an article of delicate fare in the 

 days of its frequency, now little heard of, or perhaps thought of. 

 But our forefathers thought many things of the eatable sort 

 good, which their descendants of 1861 had rather not sit down 

 to. I rather think my young readers might not eat Porpoise or 

 Heron either, with any great relish, not to speak of other matters 

 about equally, or more questionably, " good eating." Both this 

 species ot Godwit and the one to be mentioned next are subject, 

 like the Golden Plover, the Gray Plover, the Spotted Redshank, 

 and many others yet to be named, to very great and striking 

 changes of plumage in the breeding season. At all times they 

 are handsome birds. The Black-Tailed Godwit is believed still to 

 breed, however rarely, in England in Norfolk and Cambridge- 

 shire, in fact. The nest is found in marshy places, made of dry 

 grass and the like, and more or less concealed by the coarse 

 growths peculiar to such places. The eggs vary in both size and 



