How to know the Indian Waders.	133
The old male is white with glossy green-black back and
wings; females have the back and the parts of the wing
adjacent of a brown colour, and young birds also have a
black cap and are grey down the back of the neck. Year-
lings have a drab cap and back of neck. The bill is
black and the legs bright pink-red.
The length is fifteen inches, the bill taking nearly three;
but the shank from hock to toes is no less than five, and
there is a long bare space of leg above this; the closed wing
also is over nine inches, and as the neck is long, there is
little body left. The Stilt is rather a southern bird, being
found in Africa, Southern Europe, and Southern and Cen-
tral Asia. It is common in our Indian Empire in the
winter, keeping in flocks and haunting shallow water.
It seems to take vegetable as well as animal food, as one
I kept ate canary-seed, though supplied with maggots. It
breeds in some places in India, notably at the Sultanpur
salt-works, and in other salt-water resorts. Sometimes
only three eggs are laid ; they are drab with black blot-
ches and more than an inch and a half long. A little
rampart of bits of stone is often placed round them, and
they may be bedded on a few bits of grass.