54 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



ally making swift aerial flights, common to shore birds in the mating 

 season. Here, among the immense oyster-beds, they revelled in i)lenty, 

 and were as tame as could be. We shot a number, and they were so 

 very fat that little could be done with them. Dissection showed eggs 

 of half size, so that if we had had time to remain even a week longer, 

 we undoubtedly could have found their eggs. 



33_ 5 —20.00 X 37.00 x 11.00 x 4.75. Mar. 13, Padre Island. 



Strepsilas inteepres, {L.) III. — Turnstone. 



I am satisfied that many of this species breed along the entire coast 

 of Texas. At Point Isabel, on May 19th, I saw many pairs, and by their 

 actions they had evidently settled for the season. I could not drive 

 them away from certain localities. I was told by the fishermen that the 

 birds were there all the year round. I did not find their eggs. 



EECUEVIROSTRID^. 



Eecurvirostra AMERICANA, Gm. — Avocet. 



At Bolivar Point, on Galveston Bay, March 1st, I found this bird in 

 immense flocks. They were very shy, and it was only by the most care- 

 ful manoeuvring that I could shoot them. They were then just casting 

 off their winter plumage. March 29th, on the salt-marshes about half- 

 way between Brownsville and the mouth of the Eio Grande, I met them 

 again, in flocks of three or four. Here they exhibited nothing like the 

 shyness we had seen on Bolivar Point. After shooting at them, they 

 would fly a short distance along the shallow lagoon, and drop down and 

 commence feeding agaid. They apparently felt no concern for their 

 wounded companions. They were not yet in summer plumage. On 

 May 20, I examined miles of the bayous, lagoons, and marshes about 

 Point Isabel, fit places for them, and did not see any of this species, and 

 I presume they had left for the Ndrth and West. 



112— ? —17,50 X 30.50 x 9.00 x 3.50. Mar. 29, Brownsville. 

 HiMANTOPUS NIGRICOLLIS, V. — Stilt 



Occasionally seen about Brownsville in small flocks. In the marshes 

 near the coast I found them numerous, and breeding on a small island 

 that rose just above the water's edge. To reach it, we waded to the 

 depth of a foot, for half a mile or more from our ambulance, and so low 

 was it that it was quite concealed by the sparse grass of the marsh about 

 it. The island was several hundred feet long by about two hundred feet 

 wide, and was composed of mud and grasses. Herons of all kinds were 

 seen scattered over the whole marsh, feeding or lazily flying about. The 

 nests were near the water, and some of them in the water. Those in the 

 water were composed of grasses, piled up in little heaps of such a height 

 that the eggs would just clear the water. If built on the mud, there 

 were fewer grasses. The birds were there in numbers, screaming about 

 our heads. No other birds were breeding on the island, excepting 



