This bird is resident and common in the Plata district, and is called in the vernacular Téru-real, also Zancudo (stilt). It frequents marshes and lagoons, and wades in search of food in the shallow water near the margin. It is lively in its movements, and notwithstanding the great length of its legs has a pretty, graceful appearance on the ground. On the wing, however, it is seen at its best, the flight being remarkably swift and free, while the sharply-pointed glossy-black wings contrast finely with the snow-white plumage of the body, and the red legs stretched out straight behind have the appearance of a long slender tail. Stilts are fond of aerial exercises, pursuing each other with marvellous velocity through the air, so that a few moments after the spectator has almost lost sight of them in the sky above they are down again within a few yards of the surface. While pursuing each other they constantly utter their excited barking cries, which in tone remind one of the melodious barking of some hounds.
The nest is made on the low ground close to the water, and consists merely of a slight lining of dry grass and leaves gathered in a small depression on the surface; the eggs are four in number, pyriform, dark olive colour, spotted with brownish black, the spots being very thickly crowded at the large end. During incubation the male keeps guard and utters a warning note on the appearance of an enemy, whereupon the female quits the nest. They also counterfeit lameness to draw a person from the neighbourhood of the eggs or young; but in a manner peculiar to this species; for owing to the great length of their legs they cannot drag themselves along the ground, as ducks, plovers, partridges, and other birds do. Placing themselves at a distance of forty or fifty yards from the intruder, but with breast towards him, they flutter about a foot above the ground, their long legs dangling under them, and appear as if struggling to rise and repeatedly falling back. If approached they slowly retire, still fluttering just above the grass and without making any sound. After the young birds are able to fly they remain with the parents until the following spring; and sometimes two or three families associate together, raising the number of the flock to fifteen or twenty birds. The young have a sharp querulous cry of two notes; the plumage is brown and pale grey; the eyes black. After nine or ten months the adult plumage is acquired, not by moulting, but by a gradual change in the colours of the feathers. By the same gradual process the eye changes from black to crimson, the outer edge of the iris first assuming a dull reddish colour, which brightens and widens until the whole iris becomes of a vivid red.
[396.] PHALAROPUS WILSONI, Sabine.
(WILSON’S PHALAROPE.)
Phalaropus wilsoni, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 144; Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 42 (Chupat). Steganopus wilsoni, Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. Water-B. N. A. i. p. 335.
Description.—Above cinereous; head above and stripe down the neck clear greyish white; sides of head and neck black; middle of back grey, varied with dark maroon; rump and body beneath white; neck beneath stained with rufous; bill and feet black: whole length 8·5 inches, wing 5·5, tail 2·5. Female similar, but rather brighter. Winter plumage: above dark grey, beneath white.
Wilson’s Phalarope.
(Seebohm’s ‘Plovers,’ p. 342.)
Hab. America, descending southwards during migration to Patagonia.
Wilson’s Phalarope is a North-American species; which breeds in the north-west of that continent, and descends as far south as Chili and Patagonia during migration.