The Avocet. 



95 



545). The Avocet bred regularly, early in the century, in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, 

 Suffolk, Kent, and Sussex ; now it visits us in spring and autumn alone, in small 

 numbers. It breeds in Denmark, on the coast of Holland, in the Camargue 

 (Mouth of the Rhone), and the delta of the Guadalquivir; also round the Black, 

 the Aral, and the Caspian Seas, across Asia to Mongolia, chiefly, if not altogether, 

 by salt lakes and marshes, passing the Japan and China coasts on migration, as 

 far south as Ceylon. In Africa it is widely distributed, breeding in small numbers 

 down to Madagascar and Cape Colony. 



Colour of adult male (Spain, May, '76) : bill black, much flattened, turned 

 upwards towards the point, and over 3 J inches long ; iris red brown ; crown, 

 forehead, sides of head to below the eye, back of neck, innermost scapulars, lesser, 

 median and tertiary wing-coverts, and seven first primaries, black ; the latter have 

 white bases, increasing in area inwards ; all the rest of the plumage white ; legs 

 very long, pale blue; length nearly 18 inches, closed wing 8|- inches. The female 

 is a trifle smaller. 



Youug birds are not quite of so pure black and white, the black has a brown 

 tinge, and there is a tendency towards rusty tips on the upper parts. 



The nestling is covered with white down, greyer on the back, and mottled 

 on crown and back with dark brown-grey ; legs and feet of a green-grey, or 

 blue-grey. 



The nest is a slight hollow, usually in bare dried mud where water has stood 

 during the preceding winter ; sometimes in sand or shingle, occasionally amongst 

 short grass. A very little grass is sometimes used as a lining. The eggs are 

 three or four, laid about the middle of May, of a clay-buff, or occasionally grey- 

 buff, spotted and blotched with cold grey and black, and measuring about 2 inches 

 by I J. Avocets breed in colonies ; both sexes share the duties of incubation, 

 which lasts, according to Naumann, seventeen days, but probably twenty is nearer 

 the mark. 



The bill of the Avocet, from its peculiar shape, suggests at once that the 

 wearer does not probe the mud for worms, etc., as the bulk of the family Scolopacidce 

 do — which is the case. The bird subsists on surface food, feeding very commonly 

 knee-deep in water, or even deeper. The bill is used with a curious skimming 

 action. Dresser, writing of the American species of Avocet, mentions that a flock 

 of them, feeding in diagonal line, with sidelong sweeps of their bills, reminded 

 him forcibly of a line of mowers. They are good swimmers, as their feet, much 

 webbed for waders, would lead us to expect. 



Their food consists of small Crustacea, worms and insects. They are shy, quiet 

 birds in general, but very noisy when the eggs, or the young, are approached. 



