NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



177 



LONG-LEGGED PLOVER. 



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 fo: 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 appo- 

 site name of I'echasse. My spe- 

 cimen, 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 a half. Hence we may 

 safely assert that these birds 

 exhibit, weight for inches, incom- 

 parably 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 pro- 

 portion to the himantopus j 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 ! 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 

 its 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 

 awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and pliant as if 

 cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor Eay, 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 : and a most accurate observer of 

 Nature has assured me that he has- found it on the banks of the streams 

 in Andalusia. 



Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great Britain. 

 From all these relations it plainly appears that these long-legged 



