XGI.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
247 
structure, position, and number of their stomachs, or maws, 
there seems to be good reason to suppose that this and the 
two former species ruminate or chew the cud Like many 
([uadrupeds ! 
Selborne. 
LETTER X(JL 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAIXES BAURIiXGTOX. 
It is now more than forty years tliat I have paid some attention 
to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust 
the subject : new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries 
are kept alive. 
In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, 
too uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to 
naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or loripes, and Charadrius 
himaiitopus, were shot upon the verge of Erinsham pond, a large 
lake belonging to the Bishop of Winchester, and lying between 
Wolmer Eorest and the town of Earnlmm, in the county of Surrey. 
The pond-keeper says there were tliree brace in the fiock ; but 
that, after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the sixth to 
remain unmolested. One of these specimens I procured, and 
found the length of the legs to be so extraordinary, that, at first 
sight, one might have supposed the slumks had been fastened 
on to impose on the credulity of the beholder : they were legs 
in caricatura ; and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese 
or Japan screen we should have made large allowances for the 
fancy of the draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, 
and might with propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, 
under that idea, gives them the apposite name of rechasse. My 
specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed only 
four ounces and a quarter, though the naked part of the thigh 
measured three inches and a half, and the legs four inches and' 
a half. Hence ^\e may safely assert that these birds exhibit. 
