588 



Adult Male (Sarepta, May) . Hind crown, nape, and hind neck black, intermixed with white ; upper portion 

 of the back and the whole of the wings deep black glossed with bottle-green or purplish green ; tail 

 pale ashy grey, except the outer rectrices, which are white; rest of the plumage pure white; bill 

 blackish; legs rose-pink; iris deep carmine-red. Total length about 13 inches, culmen 2 - 75, wing 9"5, 

 tail 32, tarsus 4 - 6, bare portion of tibia 33. 



Adult Female (Seville, June). Hind crown and nape blackish grey; hind neck tinged with dark grey ; back, 

 scapulars, and inner secondaries dull blackish brown; rest of the plumage as in the male. 



Young. It is stated to resemble the female ; but there is more greyish black on the nape and neck, and the 

 feathers on the upper parts are margined with brownish white. 



Nestling (Kirghis steppes, June). Covered with close, rather short down, the feathers on the wings and 

 crown just appearing; the down on the crown, hind neck, and upper parts grey, marbled with sooty 

 black ; the feathers on the crown and wings black, broadly margined with rufescent ochreous ; under- 

 pays white; legs yellowish flesh-red; iris yellowish brown. 



Obs. In the male bird the amount of black on the head and neck differs greatly according to the age of 

 the bird ; for younger birds have more black on those parts, whereas in very old birds it disappears 

 entirely, leaving the head and neck pure white. Naumann appears to me in error in describing the 

 adult female as having the back black ; for all those obtained during the breeding-season by Mr. O . 

 Salvin, and carefully determined as to sex, have the back brown ; and one or two are evidently very old, 

 for they have almost lost the dark markings on the nape. In the breeding-season the male has a faint 

 tinge of rosy red on the underparts, which disappears soon after death. The winter plumage does not 

 differ from that worn in the summer, except that perhaps the upper parts have not so rich a gloss. 

 An old male from Ondonga, shot by the late C. J. Andersson in November, now in the collection of 

 Mr. J. E. Harting (which I have figured), has the entire head and neck pure white without any 

 markings. 



The Stilt inhabits Southern Europe, Africa, and Southern Asia, ranging north into Central or 

 Northern Europe only as a rare straggler. It has, however, on several occasions been met with 

 as far north as the British Islands, where examples have been obtained at different seasons of the 

 year, but can only be included as a rare and accidental straggler. Mr. Harting (Handb. Brit. B. 

 p. 135) cites thirty-three recorded instances of its occurrence, twenty-one of which were in 

 England, where, as a rule, it appears to have been more frequently met with on the east and 

 south coasts than elsewhere. The counties where it has occurred are Cornwall, Devonshire, 

 Dorsetshire, Hants, Sussex, Kent, Notts, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Lincolnshire ; 

 and it has once been recorded from the island of Anglesea. It has been met with on several 

 occasions in Norfolk ; and as Mr. Stevenson (B. of Norf. ii. pp. 244-248) gives full details respecting 

 the various recorded occurrences, I may refer my readers to his excellent work for more precise 

 information respecting it. 



With regard to its occurrence in Scotland, Mr. Gray writes (B. of W. of Scotl. p. 303) as 

 follows : — " This curious bird is figured in Pennant's ' Caledonian Zoology,' plate 4, and simply 

 catalogued as a Scottish species on page 35 of that work, the author's authority for its intro- 

 duction being apparently Sir Robert Silbald, who states, in the work referred to by Pennant 

 (Hist. Scot. lib. iii. 18, tab. 11, 13), that two specimens had been obtained at a lake near 



