The Black-necked Stilt 



AFTER ALL, to our human judgment, the 

 outstanding feature of bird life is its marvelous 

 diversity. From the Hummingbird, which weighs 

 a few scruples and is so adroit of wing that it 

 can fly backward, to that waddling avian pig, 

 the Dodo, which weighed six stone and couldn't 

 fly at all, is indeed a far cry. But the contrast 

 afforded here is no isolated example of difference 

 in the bird world. Indeed, there is no single 

 feature of avian anatomy which Dame Nature 

 does not, in one place or another, seize upon and 

 play up to the limit of imagination. Is it 

 feathers, that distinguishing characteristic of the 

 bird? Well, then, the whimsical arbiter of 

 fashions will snatch a handful anywhere, and if 

 she does not pluck it off outright, she will tweak, 

 pull, twist, exaggerate, and distort until we have 

 such creations as the resplendent trains of the 

 Quezal and the Peacock, or the absurd headgear 

 of the Six-wired Bird of Paradise, into which 

 six enormous hatpins have been thrust. Is it 

 color? Some, like the Crow and the Drongo, 

 she plunges into dye-vats filled with steaming 

 logwood; some, like the Titmouse or the Brown 

 Towhee, she covers with dust; some, like Poor- 

 will, she drapes in lichen-hues; and some, like 

 the Wood Duck, she clothes with the rainbow. 

 The Ptarmigan is purest snow, while at some of 

 the Lories this jesting dame has hurled her 

 palette, paint, brush, and all, and has achieved 

 thereby a very tragedy of color. Nor are major 

 organs spared in the craze for variety. Wings 

 may be like sails, or scimitars, or flippers, or 

 else suppressed outright. Beaks are Nature's 

 special plaything, as witness the Avocet, the 

 Toucan, and the Pelican. But for the subject 

 of this sketch has been reserved Nature's special 

 humor as to legs. A creature actually only four 

 inches long as to body — exclusive, that is, of 

 neck and tail — has legs eight or ten inches long. 

 The Stilt's tarsus, or "instep," is alone longer 

 than its body. The Stilt is, therefore, the wader 



Taken near Los Banos 

 Photo by the A uthor 



AN AVIAN 

 TELEGRAPH POLE 



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