OF SELBORNE 249 



LETTER XLIX 



Seleorne, May 7, 1779. 



It is now more than forty years that I have paid some 

 attention to the ornithology of this district, without being 

 able to exhaust the subject : new occurrences still arise as 

 long as any inquiries are kept alive. 



In the last week of last month five of those most rare 

 birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English name, 

 but known to naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or 

 loripes, and charadrius himantopus, were shot upon the 

 verge of Frinsham-pond, a large lake belonging to the 

 bishop of Winchester, and lying between Wolmer-forest, 

 and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The 

 pond keeper says there were three brace in the flock ; 

 but that, after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered 

 the sixth to remain unmolested. One of these specimens 

 I procured, and found the length of the legs to be so 

 extraordinary, that, at first sight, one might have supposed 

 the shanks had 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 for 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 apposite name of 

 I'ichasse. My specimen, 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 an half. Hence we 

 may safely assert that these birds exhibit, weight for 

 inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs of any 

 known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the 



