LONG-LEGGED AVOSET. 
219 
This species arrives on the seacoast of New Jersey about the 
twenty-fifth of April, in small detached flocks, of twenty or 
thirty together. These sometimes again subdivide into lesser 
parties; but it rarely happens that a pair is found solitary, as 
during the breeding season they usually associate in small com- 
panies. On their first arrival, and indeed during the whole of 
their residence, they inhabit those particular parts of the salt 
marshes pretty high up towards the land, that are broken into 
numerous shallow pools, but are not usually overflowed by the 
tides during the summer. These pools, or ponds are generally so 
shallow, that with their long legs the Avosets can easily wade 
them in every direction, and as they abound with minute shell- 
fish, and multitudes of aquatic insects and their larvae, besides 
the eggs and spawn of others deposited in the soft mud below, 
these birds find here an abundant supply of food, and are almost 
continually seen wading about in such places, often up to the 
breast in water. 
In the vicinity of these bald places, as they are called by the 
country people, and at the distance of forty or fifty yards ofiT, 
among the thick tufts of grass, one of these small associations, 
consisting perhaps of six or eight pair, takes up its residence 
during the breeding season. About the first week in May they 
begin to construct their nests, which are at first slightly formed 
of a small quantity of old grass, scarcely sufficient to keep the 
eggs from the wet marsh. As they lay and sit, however, either 
dreading the rise of the tides, or for some other purpose, the 
nest is increased in height, with dry twigs of a shrub very 
common in the marshes, roots of the salt grass, sea-weed, and 
various other substances, the whole weighing between two and 
three pounds. This habit of adding materials to the nest, after 
the female begins sitting, is common to almost all other birds 
that breed in the marshes. The eggs are four in number, of a 
dark yellowish clay colour, thickly marked with large blotches 
of black. These nests are often placed within fifteen or twenty 
yards, of each other, but the greatest harmony seems to prevail 
among the proprietors. 
