SELBORNE, _May_ 7_th_, 1779.
It is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to the
ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject:
new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive.
In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, too
uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by
the terms of _himantopus_, or _loripes_, and _charadrius himantopus_,
were shot upon the verge of Frinsham pond, a large lake belonging to the
Bishop of Winchester, and lying between Wolmer forest and the town of
Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The pond-keeper says there were three
brace in the flock: but that, after he had satisfied his curiosity, he
suffered the sixth to remain unmolested. One of these specimens I
procured, and found the length of the legs to be so extraordinary, that,
at first sight, one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on
to impose on the credulity of the beholder: they were legs in
_caricatura_, and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan
screen, we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the
draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, and might with
propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives
them the apposite name of _l'echasse_. My specimen, when drawn and
stuffed with pepper, weighed only four ounces and a quarter, though the
naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a half, and the legs
four inches and a half. Hence we may safely assert that these birds
exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs of
any known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the most
long-legged birds, and yet it bears no manner of proportion to the
_himantopus_; for a cock flamingo weighs, at an average, about four
pounds avoirdupois, and his legs and thighs measure usually about twenty
inches. But four pounds are fifteen times and a fraction more than four
ounces and one quarter; and if four ounces and a quarter have eight
inches of legs, four pounds must have one hundred and twenty inches and a
fraction of legs--viz., somewhat more than ten feet; such a monstrous
proportion as the world never saw! If you should try the experiment in
still larger birds, the disparity would still increase. It must be
matter of great curiosity to see the stilt plover move--to observe how it
can wield such a length of lever with such feeble muscles as the thighs
seem to be furnished with. At best one should expect it to be but a bad
walker: but what adds to the wonder is, that it has no back toe. Now
without that steady prop to support its steps it must be liable, in
speculation, to perpetual vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the
true centre of gravity.
The old name of _himantopus_ is taken from Pliny, and, by an awkward
metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and pliant as if cut out
of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor Ray, in all their curious
researches, either at home or abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant
never met with it in all Great Britain, but observed it often in the
cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hasselquist says that it migrates to
Egypt in the autumn, and a most accurate observer of Nature has assured
me that he has found it on the banks of the streams in Andalusia.
Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great Britain.
From all these relations it plainly appears that these long-legged
plovers are birds of South Europe, and rarely visit our island, and when
they do, are wanderers and stragglers, and impelled to make so distant
and northern an excursion from motives or accidents for which we are not
able to account. One thing may fairly be deduced, that these birds come
over to us from the continent, since nobody can suppose that a species
not noticed once in an age, and of such a remarkable make, can constantly
breed unobserved in this kingdom.