feet, found from Turkestan to China, and in the Himalayas. The front of the head is black, margined laterally with white; the upper parts and neck are grey, with white on the wings and outer rectrices, and black undulations on the tail, which has the tip and coverts mostly black; the under parts are white with a black gorget. The bill is black in the young. The note is whistling, the habits are like those of an Oyster-catcher, while islands in stony or sandy rivers furnish breeding sites.[187] _Himantopus_ contains the extraordinarily long-legged Stilts, of which _H. candidus_ visits Britain and Northern Europe, but breeds only in the southern parts, including Hungary. It also nests in India and Ceylon, and in Africa–though chiefly in the north. In the cold season it reaches Timor, New Zealand, and elsewhere. The head, long neck, lower back, and under surface are white, the remaining parts greenish-black; the iris is carmine, the legs are pink. Females are browner above, while immature males have the crown and nape black or brownish. The note is clear and reiterated, the habits are Plover-like, but the nest, placed on mud or in grass-tufts, is more substantial than in those birds, and contains four olive eggs with black scrawls or blotches. Whether searching the shallows for insects or other food, hovering overhead with dangling feet, or flying with them outstretched, the appearance is equally remarkable. _H. mexicanus_ of temperate {278}North America, migrating to Peru and Brazil, has a black occiput and nape; _H. knudseni_ of the Sandwich Islands has the sides of the neck also black; _H. brasiliensis_ of southern South America has the nape only black, with a white collar below; _H. leucocephalus_ of Australia and New Zealand, which visits the Malay Islands, the Philippines, the Moluccas and Papuasia, is similar, but the black does not reach the eye; _H. melas_ of New Zealand is uniform black. _H._ (_Cladorhynchus_) _pectoralis_ of Southern Australia has webbed feet like the four-toed Avocets, though itself three-toed like other Stilts, from which a bay pectoral band distinguishes it. Of the Avocets with their curious up-curved beak, _Recurvirostra andina_, of the Chilian Andes, alone resembles the Stilts in possessing a black mantle. _R. avocetta_, which bred in England until at least 1824, now ranges from Denmark and Holland to Mongolia and South Africa, though decidedly local; in Asia it migrates southwards to Ceylon and Hainan. The plumage is white, with the crown, nape, inner scapulars, and part of the wings black, the legs light blue. It is called Cobbler's Awl, from its long, flexible bill, or Yelper, from its loud clear cry. Its general habits and slight nest recall those of Plovers, though the eggs are larger; while it seeks for aquatic creatures, in shallows or pools left by the tide, with a curious scooping sidelong action of the beak. _R. americana_, with a pale rufous head and neck, inhabits temperate America,