The Black-necked Stilt 
goes through other nondescript flopping and fluttering performances, such 
as are common to the family of Shore-birds. All is, these operations are 
carried on at an unseemly distance. The bird is timorous at best, and 
though demonstrative to a fault, 
it is the despair of the camerists. 
Even the wing evolutions, which 
deserve special notice, are seldom 
conducted within decent range. 
In the first extremity of anxiety 
a Stilt will sometimes charge up 
and flutter mid-air, with its legs 
helplessly and ostentatiously 
dangling, a pathetic proffer of its 
most useful members' For the 
rest, it is content to describe in¬ 
cessant noisy circles, or to make 
spectacular sky-climbs and high 
dives for the benefit, or despair, 
of the aliens. The long red legs 
of the birds make an excellent 
rudder, and they attempt stunts 
which, if not impossible to more 
modest birds, would nevertheless 
appear very tame in them. The 
dive, especially, is a startling per¬ 
formance, in which the bird de¬ 
scends like a stricken aeroplane, 
at an angle of seventy degrees. 
The importance of those oft- 
mentioned members, the stilts of 
the Stilt, is again emphasized by 
the appearance of the young bird. 
While a newly-hatched chick ex¬ 
hibits the familiar pattern of black 
and tawny which is common to 
the entire Laro-Limicoline group, 
its feet and legs have already 
undergone an extraordinary de¬ 
velopment. In fact, to the excited 
fancy the chick appears to be all 
feet. The infant can make shift to shuffle away from the nest and 
into cover within the hour, if need be, but he cannot negotiate his stilts 
Taken near Sanla Barbara 
Photo by the Author 
THE EXPLORER 
