26o 
NATURAL HISTORY 
cunofity to fee the Jiilt plover move; to obferve how it can wield 
fuch a length of lever with fuch feeble mufcles as the thighs feem 
to be furnifhed with. At beft one Ihould expe6l it to be but a 
bad walker: but what adds to the wonder is, that it has no back toe. 
Now without that Ready prop to fupport it's fleps it muft be 
liable, in fpeculation, to perpetual vacillations, and feldom able 
to preferve the true center of gravity. 
The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny; and, by an 
aukvvard metaphor, implies that the legs are as llcnder and pliant 
as it cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor Ray^ in 
all their curious refearches, either at home or abroad, ever favv 
this bird. Mr. Pennant never met v/ith it in all Great -Britain, but 
obferved it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hafjelquiji 
fays that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn : and a moft accurate 
obferver of Nature has alfured me that he has found it on the 
banks of the ftrcams in Aidakfa. 
Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great- 
Britain. From all thefe relations it plainly appears that thefe long 
legged plovers are birds of South Europe, and rarely vifit our ifland ^ 
and when they do are wanderers and ftragglers, and impelled to 
make fo diftant and northern an excurfion from motives or ac- 
cidents for which we are not able to account. One thing may 
fairly be deduced, that thefe birds come over to us from the con- 
tinent, fmce nobody can fuppofe that a fpecies not noticed once in 
an age, and of fuch a remarkable make, can conftantly breed un- 
obferved in this kingdom. 
TETTER 
