l80 RECURVIROSTRIDiE : AVOCETS : STILTS. 



Family RECURVIROSTRID^: Avocets: 

 Stilts. 



AMERICAN AVOCET. 



ReCURVIROSTRA AMERICANA Gm. 



Chars. Legs, blue, very long ; feet, 4-toed ; toes, webbed. Bill, 

 black, longer than head, very slender and excessively acute, 

 turned up at the end. Iris, red. Head and neck, cinnamon- 

 brown in summer, ashy in winter ; back, wing-coverts and pri- 

 maries, black ; general plumage and under parts, white. Length, 

 17.00; extent, 30.00 ; wing, 9.00 ; tail, 3.50 ; bill, 3.00-4.00; tar- 

 sus, 3.50. Female usually smaller than the male. 



This is a bird of extraordinary configuration and 

 bizarre coloration. Having long legs, like any wader 

 — in fact, the length of leg exaggerating a usual pro- 

 portion — the feet are nevertheless webbed like those of 

 a swimming bird, and the body is flattened underneath, 

 with thick, duck-like plumage to resist the water. The 

 bill is unique, resembling a shoemaker's awl in slender- 

 ness, sharpness and curvature — and the curve is up- 

 ward. The black and white pattern of coloration, with 

 the cinnamon head and neck and blue legs, adds to the 

 singularity of its appearance. The color of the legs 

 suggests the ludicrous name of "blue-stocking," some- 

 times applied ; but the bird differs from those creatures 

 of our own species which have been so nicknamed, in 

 being harmless, interesting and instructive. 



The Avocet is irregularly distributed over nearly all 

 of temperate North America, from one ocean to the 

 other, and from rather high latitudes in British America 

 to Mexico and the Gulf. Still, there are large tracts of 



