202 ° RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
165. STILT, Himantopus candidus, Bonn. (Hasselquist, 29) ; 
“Abou magazel.” 
Of all the queer birds that Nature ever formed, this is 
the queerest. “At first sight,” says Gilbert White, “one 
might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on to 
impose on the credulity of the beholder:” but Nature is 
never wrong, and what seems to the superficial observer a 
deformity, is a beautiful instrument adapted to the require- 
ments of a wading bird which seeks its food in shallow 
waters. It is a strange yet elegant sight to see them bend 
forward the body at each step, as they slowly pace along in 
the water; but when frightened, they rise up, they are only 
grotesque. With such unusual length of limb, it is needless 
to say that they are slow fliers. For some seconds their 
legs hang down like a Flamingo’s, and they are greatly. 
incommoded by them. I have seen one go a hundred 
yards with them dangling at right angles, which so re- 
tarded his progress that my companions fired seven shots 
at him before he was out of range. Let me say that though 
not shy, either the closeness of their feathers, or the small- 
ness of their bodies, makes them a very hard bird to kill. 
It was on the sandbanks between Thebes and Assouan 
that they were most plentiful. We only shot one in the 
Delta, which I am rather surprised at. Sometimes they 
were single, but more often in pairs. Once one of my 
friends saw a flock of forty, but this was most exceptional. 
Doubtless it is a resident. I shot one at the Faioum in 
June. + 
In “An Account of the Birds found in Norfolk,” it is re- 
marked that the changes of plumage to which the Stilt is 
common [at Weybourne in Norfolk], and that he killed sixty-two at one 
shot in the year 1814.” 
The above is a MS. note by the late Charles Buxton. 
