22 
Chick. Covered with short soft down of various shades of fulvous yellow^ varied on the upper parts with brown, 
and with a series of square black spots down the baek, and a broad streak of the same eolour on eaeh thigh. 
(See woodcut on next page.) 
The White-headed Stilt, which appears to be also widely distributed over the continent of Australia, 
is a comparatively common bird in the middle and southern portions of New Zealand ; but I know of 
only a single instance of its occurrence as far north as Auckland. 
Notwithstanding the extraordinary length of its legs, this bird is most graceful in all its move- 
ments ; and it is a pretty sight to watch a flock of them on the edges of a lagoon, stalking about in 
the shallow water in search of their food, which consists of aquatic insects and small mollusca and 
displaying their well-balanced bodies in a variety of artistic and graceful attitudes. When on the 
wing, the legs are trailed behind, with a slight swaying motion as if to preserve the equilibrium ; and 
the bird utters a sharp, quickly repeated note, like the yelping of a small cur. 
When associating in flocks, I have noticed that they all act together as by a common impulse. 
On passing from one feeding-ground to another they form into a compact column and rise to a con- 
siderable height, with their heads drawn in and legs trailing behind, and descend again in the most 
perfect order. 
On more «ian one occasion in the summer months I have observed large flocks of this Stilt- 
Plover, associating with the black species, in the salt-marsh near the town of Napier. They are to 
be seen every day from the carriage-windows as the train passes up and down the Meane spit, and the 
sight IS a very pretty one. Two excellent representative specimens (an adult male and a fledgling, 
with the enlarged tarsi) were shot in this locality and sent to me by Mr. Hooper on the 17th December. 
Their stomachs contained grubs about an inch long and numerous small aquatic insects of various 
kinds. 
Although they do not appear to leave the country, they perform some sort of migration, for by 
the end of Apiil or beginning of May the large flocks which I have mentioned (numbering sometimes 
two hundred or more) have entirely disappeared from the Napier marshes. All through the winter, 
howevei, straggling parties of three or four, and towards spring birds in pairs, are to be met with in 
all their customary haunts. 
In the south they are not so plentiful, but I have often met with autumnal gatherings of forty 
or fifty birds. 
Mr. Gould has given an interesting account of this species in his ‘ Birds of Australia,’ but states 
that he was unable to obtain any information respecting its nidification. We have been more fortunate 
in New Zealand, as the following account will testify. 
I have found it nesting both on the dry sands or shingle-beds at the mouths of our tidal rivers 
and in the grass-meadows of our cultivated lands near the sea-shore. I have also met with it breeding 
in small companies, but each pair well apart, on the dry river-beds many miles from the sea *. They 
are somewhat capricious in their choice, frequenting certain river-beds to the exclusion of others in 
the same district, the preference being probably determined by the presence of some particular kind 
of food. They seem particularly partial to localities where the shallow water is covered by the small 
red duck-weed [Azola rubra). The proximity of the nest, however well concealed, is at once made 
manifest by the behaviour of the birds, who mount in the air and perform an undulatory flight in 
* “ In a nursery on the Upper Eangitata Eiver, about ten yards distance from a thickly spread carpet of Gulls’ eggs was 
a long hoUow in the flat by the narrow beach. In this natural rent, that gave something of a ditch-like shelter, were six Lall 
grassy nests of the Pied Stilt {H. hiKoeephalus). Five of these nests contained (December 14) in each four richly marked ec^o-g . 
the sixth contained five, an unusual number and worth recording.” Zoologist. ’ 
