BLACK-WINGED STILT.— GREY PHALAROPE. 217 



bird was first observed by a farmer's boy, who was driving 

 some cows home in the evening, standing up to its belly in 

 the water, picking, as he thought^ at the flowers. It allowed 

 him to approach within twenty yards, then rising, alighted 

 again on the opposite bank. The boy then went home and 

 told his father, who, hurrying to the spot with a loaded gun, 

 found the bird still employed in picking at the flowers. It 

 was then extremely wary and shy of the gun. The man, 

 however, whose name was Pearson^ at last succeeded in 

 shooting it as it was standing up to its knees in the water, 

 snapping at the insects. It was but little injured, and was 

 brought the next morning to Mr. Knox^ who found, on 

 dissection, that it contained a number of eggs about the size 

 of a pea. The stomach was crammed with insects, and the 

 elytra of small beetles and gnats in a half digested state. 



On May 6th, 1880, Mr. Clark Kennedy, being in the 

 marshes between Eastbourne and Polegate, had his attention 

 attracted by his fox terrier chasing a bird along a deep 

 ditch ; it ran with long strides for a few yards, and then 

 flew close past him, when he saw that it was a Stilt. The 

 bird appeared to be very tired, and only flew some two or 

 three yards, alighting in a similar ditch, whence he did not 

 again dislodge it (' Zoologist ' for 1880, p. 300). 



GKEY PHALAEOPE. 



Phalaro;pus fulicarius. 



Ix some seasons this most elegant little bird visits us in 

 very large numbers. Mr. J. H. Gurney informs us that out 

 of some five hundred which had appeared in the great immi- 

 gration between August 20th and October 8th, 1866^ about 



