134 
AMERICAN AVOSET. 
ber of smaller bot-like Avorms, some of which wallowed in the 
cavity of the abdomen. 
In Mr. Peale’s collection there is a bird of this genus, said to 
have been brought from New Holland, differing little in the mark- 
ings of its plumage from the present species. The red brown on 
the neck does not descend so far, scarcely occupying any of the 
breast; it is also somewhat less.^ 
In every stuffed and dried specimen of these birds which I 
have examined, the true form and flexure of the bill is altogether 
deranged ; being naturally of a very tender and delicate substance. 
It is remarkable, that in the Atlantic states this species inva- 
riably affects the neighborhood of the ocean ; we never having 
known an instance of its having been seen in the interior ; and yet 
Captain Lewis met with this bird at the ponds in the vicinity of 
the Falls of the Missouri. That it was our species I had ocular 
evidence by a skin brought by Captain Lewis himself, and presen- 
ted, among other specimens of Natural History, to the Philadelphia 
Museum. See History of Lewis and Clarkes Expedition, vol. II, p. 
343. 
* This is the Recurvirostra riibricoUis of Temminck, Manuel d’Omithologie, p. 592. 
