EECURVIEOSTEA AMERICANA, AVOCET. 461 



visitor, entering our limits from the South in spring, though many winter 

 along our border. A part of the birds scatter over the United States, 

 and others go further north, to breed; for they raise their young with 

 equal facility from the latitude of the Middle States — or even further 

 south, especially in the West — to that, for instance, of Great Slave Lake. 

 Their wide distribution in the West, during the breeding season, is evi- 

 denced, among other things, by the number of localities whence we have 

 records of the "White-necked Avocet" (-B. occidentalis), which is, in re- 

 ality, only the young of this species. It was first described by Mr. 

 Vigors, the distinguished English naturalist, in 1829, and has only 

 recently been determined to be the same bird in immature plumage. 

 Mr. Oassin gives a handsome plate of it in his " Illustrations." 



My first acquaintance with Avocets was made on the plains, early in 

 June, 1864. I found plenty of the birds in some shallow reedy ponds, 

 near the Arkansas Eiver, in company with several other waders, among 

 them Wilson's Phalaropes and some Gulls {Ghroecocephalus franlcUni) ; 

 while on the dry ground near by were great numbers of the Burrowing 

 Owls, living, as usual, in a prairie-dog town. The Avocets were in full 

 plumage, with the head and neck cinnamon color ; and, from their 

 actions, I had no doubt they had nests somewhere about the ponds. 

 They were quite gentle and familiar, and not at all disturbed by my ap- 

 proach, displaying a characteristic of theirs during the breeding season, 

 at least in regions where they are not often molested, and have, there- 

 fore, not learned a wholesome dread of man. They walked leisurely 

 about, up to the belly in the water, with graceful, deliberate steps, 

 each of which was accompanied by a swayi.jg of the head and neck, as 

 usual with birds of similar form. When approached too closely, they 

 rose lightly from the water, uttering their peculiar cries, flapped leis- 

 urely to a little distance, and again alighted to pursue their peaceful 

 search for food, forgetting, or at least not heeding, their recent alarm. 

 As they rose from the water, their singular, long legs were suffered to 

 dangle for a few moments, but were afterward stretched stiffly back- 

 ward, as a counterpoise to their long necks ; and, thus balanced, their 

 lithe bodies were supported with greatest ease by their ample wings. 

 When about to realight, they sailed without flapping for a little dis- 

 tance, just clearing the water, their legs again hanging loosely; as they 

 touched the ground, their long wings were held almost upright for an 

 instant, then deliberately folded and settled in place with a few slight 

 motions. Contrary to what I had expected, they showed no sympa- 

 thetic concern, and, indeed, only moderate alarm, when some of their 

 number were killed; for I must confess that after learning something of 

 their ways by observing them alive, I was anxious for a still closer ac- 

 quaintance, and therefore destroyed several individuals. In one of the 

 poor birds I found an egg almost ready to be laid, confirming my sup- 

 position that the birds were then in the place where they hoped and 

 fully intended to raise their families. Though there were a great many 

 of them associating together, those that were already paired kept closer 

 by each other, I thought, than the rest of the flocks. Some isolated 

 pairs, that I subsequently observed on a pond near Fort Larned, kept 

 side by side during the whole time that I watched them. 



Contrary to my expectations I saw no Avocets on the Eio Grande, 

 though the Stilts— birds very closely allied and often found with the 

 Avocets— were plenty. On the Colorado, in the fall of 1865, 1 saw both 

 kinds flocking on the sand-bars and hard, dry flats. This was in Sep- 

 tember, when all the Avocets that I noticed were white-neckpd, showing 

 that they were young birds, either bred in that vicinity or else then on 

 their southward migration from some distant birth-place. 



