BRITISH BIRDS 



Referring to the extinction of this bird as a breeding species in England, 

 Stevenson says {Birds of Norfolk, vol. ii. p. 240), " At Salthouse, long prior to the 

 drainage of the marshes and the erection of a raised sea-bank, the Avocets had 

 become exterminated by the same wanton destruction of both birds and eggs as is 

 yearly diminishing the numbers of Lesser Terns and Ringed Plover on the adjacent 

 beach. I have conversed with an octogenarian fowler and marshman named 

 Piggott, who remembered the ' Clinkers ' (as the Avocet was there called), breeding 

 in the marshes ' by hundreds,' and used constantly to gather their eggs. Mr. 

 Dowell, also, was informed by the late Harry Overton, a well-known gunner in 

 that neighbourhood, that in his young time he used to gather the Avocet's eggs, 

 filling his cap, coat pockets, and even his stockings ; and the poor people there- 

 abouts made puddings and pancakes of them. 1 ' 



The manner of feeding of the Avocet is peculiar, the long flexible recurved bill 

 is swept from side to side across the surface of the mud or shallow pools, as a 

 mower uses his scythe. The food consists chiefly of small crustaceans, water- 

 insects, and their larvae, secured by this method. 



The female resembles the male in colour, but has the black rather browner and 

 the white duller. 



THE BLACK-WINGED STILT. 



Himantopus candidus, Bonnaterre. 

 Plate 64. 



The Stilt is a rare wanderer to the British Islands, and has been recorded more 

 often in the eastern and southern counties than in other parts of England, and less 

 frequently in Scotland and Ireland. In the breeding season it is plentiful on many 

 of the marshes of Southern Europe, thence eastwards through Central Asia to 

 China and southwards to India and Ceylon, and also in suitable localities all over 

 Africa. 



In winter the birds which have bred in the more northerly regions migrate to 

 warmer climates. The nest, composed of dry bents or fragments of withered reeds, 

 and placed amongst the surface vegetation of swamps or on the bare partially dry 

 mud near pools of water, contains four eggs, pale sandy-brown in ground-colour, 

 with blotches and scrolls of blackish-brown. 



The extraordinarily long legs of this graceful species allow it to wade with ease 

 among the pools and swamps, where it picks up water-beetles, small shell-fish, and 



