The Black-necked Stilt 
AFTER ALL, to our human judgment, the 
outstanding feature of bird life is its marvelous 
diversity. From the Hummingbird, which weighs 
a few scruples and is so adroit of wing that it 
can fly backward, to that waddling avian pig, 
the Dodo, which weighed six stone and couldn’t 
fly at all, is indeed a far cry. But the contrast 
afforded here is no isolated example of difference 
in the bird world. Indeed, there is no single 
feature of avian anatomy which Dame Nature 
does not, in one place or another, seize upon and 
play up to the limit of imagination. Is it 
feathers, that distinguishing characteristic of the 
bird? Well, then, the whimsical arbiter of 
fashions will snatch a handful anywhere, and if 
she does not pluck it off outright, she will tweak, 
pull, twist, exaggerate, and distort until we have 
such creations as the resplendent trains of the 
Quezal and the Peacock, or the absurd headgear 
of the Six-wired Bird of Paradise, into which 
six enormous hatpins have been thrust. Is it 
color? Some, like the Crow and the Drongo, 
she plunges into dye-vats filled with steaming 
logwood; some, like the Titmouse or the Brown 
Towhee, she covers with dust; some, like Poor- 
will, she drapes in lichen-hues; and some, like 
the Wood Duck, she clothes with the rainbow. 
The Ptarmigan is purest snow, while at some of 
the Lories this jesting dame has hurled her 
palette, paint, brush, and all, and has achieved 
thereby a very tragedy of color. Nor are major 
organs spared in the craze for variety. Wings 
may be like sails, or scimitars, or flippers, or 
else suppressed outright. Beaks are Nature’s 
special plaything, as witness the Avocet, the 
Toucan, and the Pelican. But for the subject 
of this sketch has been reserved Nature’s special 
humor as to legs. A creature actually only four 
inches long as to body—exclusive, that is, of 
neck and tail has legs eight or ten inches long. 
The Stilt’s tarsus, or “instep,” is alone longer 
than its body. The Stilt is, therefore, the wader 
Taken near Los Banos 
Photo by the Author 
AN AVIAN 
TELEGRAPH POLE 
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