Avocets and Stilts 



including a spot above and below the eye, white. (Long 

 black wings, folding over white spots on lower back, rump, 

 and upper tail coverts, make the entire upper parts appear 

 black.) Immature birds more brownish above. Long, 

 straight, slender, black bill. Excessively long red or pink 

 legs. Beautiful large crimson eyes. 



Range — Tropical America, nesting northward from the Gulf 

 states, "locally and rarely" up the Mississippi; rare on the 

 Atlantic coast, though specimens have been taken in Maine 

 and some reach Long Island annually ; most abundant in the 

 southwest. 



Season — Summer resident or visitor. Permanent resident in 

 Gulf states. 



To a query put to an Arkansas farmer as to why this bird 

 should be called the lawyer, immediately came another query: 

 "Ain't you ever noticed its long bill.?" 



But it is the excessive length of legs that attracts the 

 attention of all except punsters. So slender and stilt-like are 

 they, so teetering and trembling is the bird when it alights, 

 that one's first impulse is to rush forward and help it regain its 

 equilibrium before it falls. Why must the stilt always go 

 through this pretense of feebleness when we know it is a strong 

 steady walker, graceful and alert; or, does it actually lose its 

 balance on alighting? 



Wading about, with decided and measured steps, in shallow 

 pools, preferably among the salt and alkaline marshes, where the 

 avocets often keep them company, the stilts pick up, from first 

 one side, then the other, insects and larvae, small shell fish, 

 worms, fish fry, etc., often plunging both head and neck under 

 water to seize some deep swimmer. Long as their legs are, 

 they will wade up to their breasts to secure a good meal; but, 

 having no webs to their toes, swimming does not come easy, as 

 it does to avocets, nor is it often tried. 



Strong fliers, owing to their long wings, which, when 

 folded, reach beyond the tail, the longshanks trail their stif- 

 fened legs behind them at a horizontal, after the manner of their 

 tribe, and continually yelp click, click, click, as the flock moves 

 leisurely overhead. In the nesting grounds this yelping cry is 

 incessant, however far the intruder keeps from the olive or 

 clay colored eggs or the young chicks that run about as soon 

 as hatched. 



