The Black-necked Stilt 



goes through other nondescript flopping and fluttering performances, such 

 as are common to the family of Shore-birds. All is, these operations are 

 carried on at an unseemly distance. The bird is timorous at best, and 

 though demonstrative to a fault, 

 it is the despair of the camerists. 

 Even the wing evolutions, which 

 deserve special notice, are seldom 

 conducted within decent range. 

 In the first extremity of anxiety 

 a Stilt will sometimes charge up 

 and flutter mid-air, with its legs 

 helplessly and ostentatiously 

 dangling, a pathetic proffer of its 

 most useful members. For the 

 rest, it is content to describe in- 

 cessant noisy circles, or to make 

 spectacular sky-climbs and high 

 dives for the benefit, or despair, 

 of the aliens. The long red legs 

 of the birds make an excellent 

 rudder, and they attempt stunts 

 which, if not impossible to more 

 modest birds, would nevertheless 

 appear very tame in them. The 

 dive, especially, is a startling per- 

 formance, in which the bird de- 

 scends like a stricken aeroplane, 

 at an angle of seventy degrees. 



The importance of those oft- 

 mentioned members, the stilts of 

 the Stilt, is again emphasized by 

 the appearance of the young bird. 

 While a newly-hatched chick ex- 

 hibits the familiar pattern of black 

 and tawny which is common to 

 the entire Laro-Limicoline group, 

 its feet and legs have already 

 undergone an extraordinary de- 

 velopment. In fact, to the excited 

 fancy the chick appears to be all 



feet. The infant can make shift to shuffle away from the nest and 

 into cover within the hour, if need be, but he cannot negotiate his stilts 



Taken near Santa Barbara 



Photo by the Author 



THE EXPLORER 



I2II 



