CHARADRIIDAE 



The scream in the breeding season is often quite deafening, but at 

 other times these wary birds are seldom noisy. Their flight is 

 powerful, and they can swim and dive. The bill is orange and the 

 feet flesh-coloured in this species, as well as in H. longirostris of the 

 Moluccas, Papuasia, Australia, and New Zealand, with longer bill 

 and entirely black primaries. IT. leucopus of Chili, Patagonia, and 

 the Falklands, has a black lower back and pale feet ; If. palliatus 

 (with its races frazari, galapagensis, and durnfordi\ ranging from 

 Nova Scotia and California to Patagonia, has a brown mantle. Of 

 the perfectly black or brownish-black species, H. niger, of both 

 coasts of the North Pacific, has pale flesh-coloured feet ; H. moquini, 

 of the Ethiopian Eegion, the Canaries, and Madeira, has them deep 

 red ; If. ater, found from Peru to Patagonia and the Falklands, has 

 the scarlet bill compressed and upturned ; If. unicolor of Australia 

 .and New Zealand has the feet brick-red. This genus has three 

 toes, as has the remarkable Ilidorhynclms struthersi, with long 

 decurved red bill and greenish-grey feet, found from Turkestan to 

 China, and in the Himalayas. The front of the head is black, 

 margined laterally with white ; the upper parts and neck are grey, 

 with white on the wings and outer rectrices, and black undulations 

 on the tail, which has the tip and coverts mostly black ; the under 

 parts are white with a black gorget. The bill is black in the young. 

 The note is whistling, the habits are like those of an Oyster-catcher, 

 while islands in stony or sandy rivers furnish breeding sites. 1 



Himantopus contains the extraordinarily long-legged Stilts, 

 of which H. candidus visits Britain and Northern Europe, but 

 breeds only in the southern parts, including Hungary. It also 

 nests in India and Ceylon, and in Africa though chiefly in the 

 north. In the cold season it reaches Timor, New Zealand, and 

 elsewhere. The head, long neck, lower back, and under surface 

 are white, the remaining parts greenish-black ; the iris is carmine, 

 the legs are pink. Females are browner above, while immature 

 males have the crown and nape black or brownish. The note is 

 clear and reiterated, the habits are Plover-like, but the nest, placed 

 on mud or in grass-tufts, is more substantial than in those birds, 

 and contains four olive eggs with black scrawls or blotches. 

 Whether searching the shallows for insects or other food, hover- 

 ing overhead with dangling feet, or flying with them outstretched, 

 the appearance is equally remarkable. H. mexicanus of temperate 



1 See W. W. Cordeaux, Ibis, 1894, p. 374 ; 1897, pp. 563-564. 



