LONG-BILLED CURLEW lOl 



in a shamefaced mauner. Before tlie nest is discovered tbe males ■who are 

 aiding to mislead the observer will sometimes act in this shamefaced way. 



Eggs. — Four eggs are ordinarily laid by the long-billed curlew, 

 occasionally five; as many as eight have been found in a nest, evi- 

 dently the product of two females. The eggs vary in shape from 

 ovate to short ovate or ovate pyrif orm, sometimes quite rounded ; and 

 they have a slight gloss. The prevailing ground colors are in various 

 shades of " olive buff " ; but some dark types are " ecru olive," some 

 green types are " seaf oam green " and some are as pale as buffy white. 

 The eggs are generally quite evenly spotted, some very thickly and 

 some very sfiaringiy, with various shades of brown and olive, " Van- 

 dyke brown," "bister," "snuff brown," "buffy brown," and "buffy 

 olive," with numerous underlying markings in various shades of 

 " brownish drab " and " drab gray." A very handsome set has a 

 rich buff ground color, between " honey yellow " and " chamois," 

 uniformly covered with small spots of rich browns, " Sudan brown " 

 to "russet." The measurements of 68 eggs average 65 by 45.8 milli- 

 meters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 72 by 48, 70 by 

 48.5, 56 by 43.5, and 62.5 by 42 millimeters. 



Yovm,g. — Incubation is said to be shared by both sexes; its exact 

 duration does not seem to be recorded, but for the European curlew 

 it is said to be 30 days. Both birds are certainly very solicitous in 

 the care of the young. We were too late for eggs in Saskatchewan, 

 but we found three broods of young. On June 1, 1905, we found two 

 small young curlews, hardly able to walk, in a grassy hollow in 

 the prairie; the old birds gave us a great exhibition of parental 

 solicitude, flying about, alighting on the ground near us and making 

 a great outcry. Their loud cries brought a third curlew which joined 

 in the chorus of whistling cries. 



When large enough to run, the young are adepts in the art of 

 hiding; they seem to disappear entirely, even in the short grass; 

 after hunting carefully for fully half an hour, over a limited area 

 where we had seen one vanish, Ave gave it up and walked away, when 

 we were surprised to see the youngster get up and run away from the 

 very spot we had been hunting hardest. 



Probably the mortality among young curlews is rather high, as 

 they have many enemies. All three of the broods we found con- 

 tained only two young. The parents have to work hard to jDreserve 

 even this average. We saw an interesting exhibition of parental 

 strategy one day, which probably succeeded in saving some young 

 curlews from the jaws of a prowling coyote. The curlew was de- 

 coying the coyote away by feigning lameness, flopping along the 

 ground a few yards ahead of him, but always managing to barely 



