GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AVEST OF 100TH MERIDIAN. 319 
immediate proximity to their nests. My search proving of no avail, I accepted without 
hesitancy the apparent fact that I had anticipated by a few days their nesting-time ; 
and it was not until June l that I learned the full exteut of the deception that the 
wily birds had practiced upon me. 
While collecting at that date in a very similar locality half a mile or more up the 
lake, I found myself possessed of their secret, and in the midst of a large colony of both 
avocets and stilts, while numbers of the nests of either bird rewarded an easy search. 
As was plainly to be seeu.it was their foraging trips that carried them away from home 
to the place where I had at first encountered them. Even at this remote point, their 
anxiety, real or pretended, had enabled them to effectually blind me as to the actual 
situation of their breeding-ground. 
If the outcries of the few had been noticeable before, the confusion of souud result¬ 
ing from the combined numbers of the whole colony was simply bewildering. The 
unfortunate pair whose nest I first stumbled upon used all the artifices common to birds 
in such a strait to entice me away. They would run furtively about a few yards dis¬ 
tant, and then squat close down to the ground, and grovel in the loose earth as if set¬ 
tling over their eggs, while they kept uttering subdued coaxing notes as though call¬ 
ing to imaginary young. Their efforts at simulating the actions of wounded birds, 
which was the evident significance of the drooping wings and staggering gait adopted, 
were not very successful, and the nature of the deception was too apparent to deceive 
even a novice. After a while they appeared to become convinced of the futility of 
these attempts, and then rage took the place of sorrow. Flying about me in wide cir¬ 
cles, the various pairs screamed and scolded till apparently exhausted by the excess 
of their emotions, when they betook themselves to a safe distance. I could not help 
fancying that the amount of sympathy extended the bereft birds by their neighbors 
was in pretty exact ratio to the proximity of their own nests, those pairs being the 
most venturesome and vehement whose own danger appeared greatest, while away on 
the verge of the marsh stood quietly or fed leisurely about, in fancied security, those 
couples whose distant homes seemed not to be threatened. 
In placing its nest the avocet shows a certain degree of cunning, and for this pur¬ 
pose usually avails itself of some little islet or isolated strip of marshy ground where 
its eggs and young are comparatively removed from the danger of intrusive visits 
from all four-footed prowlers. One enemy they have from which this situation offers 
no protection. I refer to the inlaud gull of this region, the Laras californicus. Gulls, 
as is well known, are very fond of eggs, and never allow a chance of robbing other 
birds to pass by unimproved. In the present instance the outcries of the abused avo¬ 
cets had attracted the attention of a flock of the above birds that had been hovering 
over the lake, and, apparently scenting their opportunity, they swept in on poised 
wings or moved in gentle circles, awaited a favorable moment to descend to the feast. 
That both avocets and stilts were well aware of the proclivity of these new foes was 
soon apparent. For when one of the gulls, becoming, perhaps, impatient, flew in close 
to the nests, all the birds near, forgetting on the instant their human enemy, com¬ 
bined to repel this fresh assault. Gaining a vantage ground above the big birds, they 
pounced down, striking their foes with wings and bills, until the gulls were forced to 
a hasty and ignominious retreat. These attacks and counter-attacks were repeated 
several times, until the gulls, discomfited by their warm reception,left the vicinity. 
The eggs are laid in plain view, and are quite unprotected by grasses or other screen¬ 
ing. The slight hollow, scratched and patted down in the damp soil to receive them, 
is occasionally quite thoroughly lined, oftener very slightly, with bits of weeds, stalks, 
&c. The number of eggs varies from two to four. 
Himantopus Brisson. 
ff. nigricolKs (A^ieill.). Black-neckJ3tilt. 
The mode of life of the stilt is, in all important particulars, like that of the avocet, 
and so invariably have the two birds been associated when under my notice, especially 
at the breeding period, that anything which brings to mind the oue species is sure to 
recall the other. This companiouship is a purely accidental one, arising from an inde¬ 
pendent choice of the same localities, under the promptings of similar tastes as to food 
and other necessities. Both are waders par excellence. But. if the stilt ever swims at 
all, and it doubtless possesses this power to a certain extent in common, I believe, with 
each and every member of its long-legged fraternity, it must be only in extreme emer¬ 
gencies. I have myself never seen it take to the water under any circumstances. In 
many other minor particulars of habits and actions the two birds differ. 
In the West one may expect to find the nests of the stilts alternating at short dis¬ 
tances with those of the avocets, as if the two were unconscious or at least indifferent 
to each other’s presence. Indeed, in many instances it would be no easy task to satis¬ 
factorily identify the eggs of the two species in the rabble of parent birds that hover 
around the intruder, were it not for the fact that the very considerable difference of 
size in the birds is exemplified in the eggs, those of the stilt being very perceptibly the 
smaller, corresponding with its more slender and everyway less bulky body. 
