NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBOllNE. 
177 
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 fo: 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 appo- 
site name of Vecliasse. My spe- 
cimen, when drawn and stuffed 
with pepper, weighed only four 
ounces and a quarter, though 
the naked part of the thigh 
measured three inches and an 
half, and the legs four inches 
and a half. Hence we may 
safely assert that these birds 
exhibit, weight for inches, incom- 
parably the greatest length of 
legs of any known bird. The 
flamingo, for instance, is one of 
the most long-legged birds, and 
yet it bears no manner of pro- 
portion to the Jiimantopus; for a long-legged plover. 
cock flamingo weighs, at an 
average, about four pounds avoirdupois; and his legs and thighs measure 
usually about twenty inches. But four pounds are fifteen times and a 
fraction more than four ounces, and one quarter ; and if four ounces and 
a quarter have eight inches of legs, four pounds must have one hundred 
and twenty inches and a fraction of legs ; viz., somewhat more than ten 
feet ; such a monstrous proportion as the world never saw ! If you 
should try the experiment in still larger birds the disparity would still 
increase. It must be matter of great curiosity to see the stilt plover 
move ; to observe how it can wield such a length of lever with such 
feeble muscles as the thighs seem to be furnished with. At best one 
should expect it to be but a bad walker : but what adds to the wonder 
is, that it has no back toe. Now without that steady prop to support 
its steps it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations, and 
seldom able to preserve the true center of gravity. 
The old name of Jiimantopus is taken from Pliny; and, by an 
awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and pliant as if 
cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor Eay, in all their 
curious researches, either at home or abroad, ever saw this bird. 
Mr. Pennant never met with it in all Great Britain, but observed it 
often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hasselquist says that it 
migrates to Egypt in the autumn : and a most accurate observer of 
Nature has assured me that he has found it on the banks of the streams 
in Andalusia. 
Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great Britain. 
From all these relations it plainly appears that these long-legged 
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