LONG-LEGGED AVOSET. 345 



acquaintance with the living subjects in their native wilds, I 

 have presumed to remove the present species to the true and 

 proper place assigned it by Nature., and shall now proceed to 

 detail some particulars of its history. 



This species arrives on the sea-coast of New Jersey about 

 the 25th of April, in small detached flocks of twenty or thirty 

 together. These sometimes again subdivide into lesser parties ; 

 but it rarely happens that a pair is found solitary, as, during 

 the breeding season, they usually associate in small companies. 

 On their first arrival, and, indeed, during the whole of their 

 residence, they inhabit those particular parts of the salt marshes, 

 pretty high up towards the land, that are broken into numerous 

 shallow pools, but are not usually overflowed by the tides 

 during the summer. These pools or ponds are generally so 

 shallow, that, with their long legs, the avosets can easily 

 wade them in every direction ; and as they abound with 

 minute shell-fish, and multitudes of aquatic insects and their 

 larvas, besides the eggs and spawn of others deposited in the 

 soft mud below, these birds find here an abundant supply of 

 food, and are almost continually seen wading about in such 

 places, often up to the breast in water. 



In the vicinity of these bald places, as they are called by 

 the country people, and at the distance of forty or fifty yards 

 off, among the thick tufts of grass, one of these small associa- 

 tions, consisting perhaps of six or eight pair, takes up its 

 residence during the breeding season. About the first week 

 in May they begin to construct their nests, which are at first 

 slightly formed, of a small quantity of old grass, scarcely suffi- 

 cient to keep the eggs from the wet marsh. As they lay and 

 sit, however, either dreading the rise of the tides, or for some 

 other purpose, the nest is increased in height with dry twigs 

 of a shrub very common in the marshes, roots of the salt grass, 

 seaweed, and various other substances, the whole weighing 

 between two and three pounds. This habit of adding materials 

 to the nest after the female begins sitting is common to almost 

 all other birds that breed in the marshes. The eggs are four 



