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 caricature; 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 an half, and the
legs four inches and an half. Hence we may safely assert that these
birds exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length
of legs of any known bird.
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