OF SELBORNE. 



275 



that these long-legged plovers are birds of South Europe, 

 and rarely visit our island ; and when they do, are wan- 

 derers and stragglers, and impelled to make so distant and 

 northern an excursion from motives or accidents for which 

 we are not able to account. One thing may fairly be 



BLACK-WINGED STILT. 



deduced, that these birds come over to us from the conti- 

 nent, since nobody can suppose that a species not noticed 

 once in an age, and of such a remarkable make, can con- 

 stantly breed unobserved in this kingdom. 



Zoology," p. 35, pi. 4). Gilbert White's notice of this species was the 

 next in order of date, and since that time some thirty additional in- 

 stances of its occurrence have been placed on record (cf. " Handbook 

 of British Birds," pp. 135, 136). One of these relates to the occur- 

 rence of a specimen in 1832 at the very pond where some fifty years 

 previously it had been noticed by White. The author of " Ornitho- 

 logical Rambles in Sussex" has given a very pleasing account of the 

 habits of this singular bird, as observed on its occurrence in Sussex, in 

 the "Ibis" for 1859 (p. 395), to which account the reader would do 

 well to refer. ED. 



