AMERICAN STILT. 
53 
This species arrives on the seacoast of New Jei’sey about the 
twenty-fifth of April, in small detached Hocks, 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 companies. On 
their first arrival, and indeed during the whole of their residence, 
they inhabit those particular parts of the salt marshes, pi’etty higli 
up towards the land, that are broken into numerous shallow i)ools, 
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 Stilts can easily wade through them in every direction ; 
and as they abound with minute shell-fish, and muititudes of acpia- 
tic 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 ofl, 
among the thick tufts of grass, one of these small associations, 
consisting perhaps of six or eight pair, takes up its residence dur- 
ing the breeding season. About the first week in May they be- 
gin 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 com- 
mon to almost all other birds that breed in the marshes. The 
eggs are four in number, of a dark yellowish clay color, thickly 
marked Avith large blotches of black. These nests are often placed 
O 
VOL. VII. 
