AMERICAN AVOCET. 
107 
The Avocets near their .breeding-places are very noisy, 
quailing, and clamorous, flying around in circles near their 
invaders, and in a sharp but plaintive tone uttering 'clik, 'clik, 
’clik, in the manner of the Stilts or Long Legs {Ilimcmtopus) , 
with which at times they familiarly associate in small numbers 
to pass the important period of reproduction. lake them also 
they alight on the marsh or in the water indifferently, fluttering 
their loose wings and shaking their tottering and bending legs 
as if ready to fall, keeping up at the same time a continual 
yelping, d'he nest, in the same marsh with the Stilts, was 
hidden in a thick tuft of grass or sedge at a small distance 
from one of their favorite pools. It was composed of small 
twigs of some marine shrub, withered grass, sea-weeds, and 
other similar materials, the whole raised to the height of 
several inches. 
Buffon, theorizing on the singular structure of the bill of the 
Avocet, supposes it to be “ one of those errors or essays of 
Nature which, if carried a little further, would destroy itself; 
for if the curvature of the bill were a degree increased, the bird 
could not procure any sort of food, and the organ destined for 
the support of life would infallibly occasion its destruction. 
As it happens, however, and not as might be iniagined, the 
Avocet, no less than the Crossbill, continues not only to live, 
But to vary its fare and obtain it with facility. Even the sloth, 
that triumph on the occasional imbecility of Nature, so wretched 
and lost upon the plain ground, for which the motions of its 
peculiar and unequal limbs are not calculated, climbs up a tree 
"nth facility, and, like the tribe of monkeys, is perfectly at ease 
in its accustomed arboreal retreat. Let us then more wisely 
content ourselves to observe Nature in all her ingenious 
paths, without daring, in our ignorance, to imagine the pos- 
sible failure of her conservative laws. 
The Avocet is a rather uncommon bird near the Atlantic coast, 
and north of New Jersey is merely a straggler, a few examples 
having been taken in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and New 
Brunswick. On the alkali plains of the West it is quite abundant, 
and ranges as far north as Great Slave Lake. 
