104 BULLETIN 14 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



day, but again as we lauded they all rose a few yards in tlie air, separated 

 into numerous parties, and, dispersing in various directions, flew off toward 

 their feeding grounds, keeping low over the water until they reached the 

 shores, when they ascended to the height of about a hundred yards and soon 

 disappeared. 



A similar habit evidently prevails on the prairies, which Mr. 

 Wickersham (1902) describes very well as follows: 



As evening falls he becomes restless, his hunting comes to an end, his bobbing 

 becomes more jerky and more and more repeated, until with a loud whistle 

 he jumps forward, his long wings fly out and up and with the first unsteadiness 

 over he joins the bunch in a long line and betakes his way with the others 

 toward some distant marsh or pond. On, on they go; the leader whistles, 

 The others answer, suddenly they all drop, sweep forward and up a little, and 

 then, with wings almost meeting above them and legs held daintily down to 

 break the shock, they all alight. For five minutes there is no movement, no 

 sound ; there are no birds to be seen where, a moment before, the graceful 

 creatures had alighted ; suddenly there is a little flutter of wings and before 

 you know it numerous forms have run forward and bent over the water to 

 noisily quench their thirst. For another five minutes there is as great a con- 

 fusion and clamor as formerly there was order and quiet ; wings are fluttering, 

 hoarse, short cries are arising, feet are pattering up and down, the water is 

 heavily rippling from the motion of many bills, and, in a word, all is chaos. 

 One by one the drinkers cease, calmness is gradually restored, and, after plum- 

 ing themselves, the birds draw one leg up under them, tuck their head under 

 one wing, neatly fold the other, and sweet slumber reigns. 



On its behavior with other species Mr. Silloway (1900) writes: 



There is another side to the disposition of the long-billed curlew, for this 

 spring I was once startled by an unusually piercing whistle, and looking upward 

 I saw a curlew swooping angrily upon a ferruginous roughleg that had chanced 

 to wander over the claimed domain of this pair of Numenii. Time and again 

 the curlew swooped upon the unoffending Archihuteo as the latter flapped 

 heavily along the edge of the coulee, and the cliff echoed with the shrill whistles 

 of the angry curlew. On the other hand, the long-billed curlews are the victims 

 of petty teasing by the longspurs which throng the prairie. I have repeatedly 

 noticed McCown's longspur {Rhynchophanes mccoicnli) flutter up beside a 

 curlew, sailing upward, or attempt to strike the curlew, the latter on such 

 occasions seldom giving any attention to the petty annoyance mentioned. 



E. S. Cameron (1907) says that he has seen nesting curlews make 

 flying attacks at Swainson and marsh hawks, just as the European 

 curlews attack the jaegers. 



Voice. — Long-billed curlews are noisy birds, especially on their 

 breeding grounds. I have recorded their ordinary notes of protest^ 

 when near their nests or young, as loud musical whistles, like quee- 

 hee^ quee-hee, quee-hee, sometimes prolonged into a long, rattling call, 

 que-he-he-he-he-he, loud and striking. Sometimes we heard a series 

 of somewhat guttural notes, or a melodius coy, coy, coy, somewhat 

 like the autumn gather call of the bobwhite. I have heard them in 

 Texas in the spring give rich, loud, musical notes as they flew, 

 wheety, wheety, wheety, very rapidly uttered, opening the bill with 



