AVOCET. 
339 
OR ALL A TORES. 
SCO LOP A CIDJE. 
AVOCET. 
IIecurvirostra avocetta. 
PLATE XCII. FIG. II. 
Some twent}^ or thirty years ago, when bird-collectors 
were less numerous, and guns were more expensive and 
therefore more difficult to procure, the Avocet was one of 
the rare birds that used to breed occasionally in some of 
the marshy districts of this country. It is said to have 
been found during the breeding-season in Lincolnshire 
and in Kent, and the Messrs. Paget, of Yarmouth, have 
seen it, together with its young ones, in the county of Nor¬ 
folk. It is, however, too singular and remarkable a bird 
to remain now unmolested in any part of this country; 
and if not already, will soon be, amongst the list of those 
birds which were once, but are now no longer, indigenous 
with us. 
It is said that the Avocet usually lays two eggs, and 
sometimes, though rarely, three, which are deposited in 
a slight depression of the surface, either upon the bare 
ground, or on a small quantity of dry grass. They are 
readily known from those of the waders most nearly allied 
to them, by their greater size, and by their difference of 
contour and of colouring. As the Avocet usually lays 
two eggs only, it was unnecessary that they should pos¬ 
sess that pointed form which enables the four eggs of the 
