Family CHARADRIID^. Genus Recurvirostra. 



Subfamily Totaninac. 



COMMON AVOOET. 



RECURVIROSTRA AVOCETTA— Z/«««;/j. 



Geographical Distribution.— -5'r/Ai-/« .• Irregular straggler 

 on migration to England, still more accidental elsewhere. A 

 melancholy interest attaches to the Avocet, inasmuch that this 

 curious bird once bred regularly in the British Islands, but has 

 long been exterminated as a nesting species by the destruction of 

 its favourite haunts and the persecution of man. For nearly 

 seventy years the Avocet has ceased to breed in this country. 

 Formerly bred in the marshes and on those parts of the coast suited 

 to its requirements, in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, and 

 Sussex, and it is to these old haunts the occasional visitors seem 

 most attracted, usually making their appearance in spring, as was 

 once their regular practice, less frequently in autumn. Still more 

 abnormal in appearance elsewhere, especially northwards and west- 

 wards. Only about half-a-dozen examples recorded from Scotland, 

 where it has been met with, however, as far north as the Orkneys 

 and Shetlands, and even in the Outer Hebrides. Very accidental 

 in Ireland, chiefly in the south, though once recorded from 

 the estuary of the Moy in the north-west. Foreign: Southern 

 Palsearctic and Ethiopian regions ; Oriental region in winter. 

 Breeds in Europe on some of the islands off the Dutch and 

 Danish coasts, on the marshes at the delta of the Rhone, the 

 marismas of Southern Spain, the valley of the Danube, notably, it 

 is said, the Neuseidler See, near Vienna, and the lagoons of the 

 Black Sea. To the remainder of the Continent, as far north as 

 Southern Scandinavia, it is only an abnormal visitor on migration. 

 South of the Mediterranean it is said to breed in suitable 



