THE STILTS. 
I9I 
anxiety at the nest— one a sharp, rapidly repeated ht-ht-ht, 
or hit, hit, hit, and the other a sort of rattling note, resembling 
the syllable peur-r-re. As the wily bird succeeds in luring 
the intruder away from its treasures, it does not fly so near 
him; the former note only is heard, and is less rapidly and 
less anxiously repeated ; the final t is omitted, or is inaudible, 
and the note sounds like hee, kee, kee.” Lord Lilford writes 
I have always found this bird very easy of approach. In 
the breeding-season it is difficult to drive them from their 
nestinof-places, over which they hover with loud outcries, and 
I hav^ frequently ridden to within a few feet of Stilts wading 
in a few inches of water, and busily engaged in picking up 
small insects from the weeds, or snapping at them in the a*''- 
In Spain I have found the stomachs and throats of these birds 
crammed with what I believe to have been mosquitoes, or 
some very nearly allied and probably equally pestilent insects, 
and on this score alone this pretty bird is worthy of protection, 
more especially as its flesh is worthless, and its tameness so 
great that the most rabid collector can obtain more specimens 
than he can reasonably require in a few minutes.” Colonel 
Irby says that the Stilt is, in spring, one of the most common 
of the marsh-birds on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar. 
At Mesbree el Haddar, in Marocco, and in the marisma of 
the Guadalquivir, their numbers were perfectly marvellous. 
“ In some seasons they have nested at the Laguna de la Janda. 
They frequent open shallow pools and lakes, and are very 
seldom seen where there is grass or rushes, being, as a rule, 
very tame and confiding, while their conspicuous black and 
white plumage and noisy habits render them certain to attract 
attenlion, either as they fly with their long pink legs stretched 
out, Heron-like, behind them, or as they wade about, usually 
up to their knees, in the shallow water, where they seek their 
food in the shape of aquatic insects, gnats, and flies. 
Nest.— Placed in various situations, such as on the half-dried 
mud in Spain. Mr. Howard Saunders has found the nest by 
the pools in the marismas, consisting of a slight nest of bents 
by the side of a tuft of rushes, often so near the water as to 
be coated with mud from the bird’s feet. Sometimes they are 
more solid structures, and Mr. Seebohm found nests in the 
Ilobrudscha built of weeds, broken bits of old dead reeds, and 
