106 BULLETIN 14G^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



gun. Although naturally much alarmed, the survivors immediately returned to 

 their wounded companions, which were calling aloud as they lay upon the 

 marsh, flying over and around them, with hanging legs, and uttering answering 

 notes of sympathy, and approaching nearer and nearer until they were not many 

 feet above the ground. Repeated discharges of my gun failed for a time to drive 

 the unwounded birds from the vicinity, but as each individual fell from the 

 ranks, the rest would swoop toward it, and with much crying seem to urge it to 

 rise and follow them. The air was full of rapid-flying circling birds, each one 

 screaming its best, and it was not until a considerable number had fallen that 

 the remainder, convinced at length of the fruitlessness of their efforts, and the 

 danger present to themselves, departed for a more secure locality. 



Winter. — The long-billed curlew is still quite common in Texas and 

 Mexico in winter. Mr. Wickersham (1902) says: 



After reaching its winter home, the curlew undergoes little change of habits 

 except in his relation to other birds. For a few days the big bunches stay 

 together and then they begin to separate into small bunches of from 2 to 20 

 birds. It is rarely that a single one is seen entirely by himself but two or three 

 feeding together and then, perhaps a mile off, two or three more and in this 

 way scattered all over the pastures and prairies is the way we find them in 

 Texas. They are rarely found in the brush or even in ponds or swales 

 surrounded by the brush, but far out on the open prairie or in little mud flats 

 on the larger swales we rarely miss them. Here they feed all day looking for 

 almost any form of insectivorous or crustacean life, 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — North and Central America, accidental in the West Indies 

 and Newfoundland. Failure to accurately separate the different 

 curlews, particularly on the Atlantic seaboard, causes some uncer- 

 tainty regarding their general ranges, but aniericanus is evidently 

 now very rare east of the Mississippi River. 



Breeding range. — The long-billed curlew breeds (at least form- 

 erly) north to British Columbia (150-mile House, probably Lac La 

 Hache, and Vernon) ; Alberta (near Calgary, probably Flagstaff, 

 and Walsh) ; Saskatchewan (Rush Lake and Quill Lake) ; Manitoba 

 (Shell River, Aweme, and Pilot Mound) ; North Dakota (Bathgate 

 and Argusville) ; and Wisconsin (Ceresco and Racine). East to 

 Wisconsin (Racine) ; Illinois (formerly Chicago) ; Iowa (Newton 

 and formerly Ferry) ; Kansas (Neosho Falls) ; Oklahoma (Camp 

 Supply and Ivanhoe Lake) ; and Texas (Houston, Corpus Christi, 

 and Brownsville). South to Texas (Brownsville, and Fort Davis) ; 

 New Mexico (Fort Sumner, Santa Rosa, Los Pinos, and Fort Win- 

 gate) ; Arizona (Sulphur Springs) ; Utah (Fairfield, and Skull Val- 

 ley) ; Nevada (probably Franklin Lake, Humboldt River, and 

 Truckee Valley) ; and northern California (Pitt River, Butte Valley, 

 and Eagleville). West to California ( Eagle ville) ; Oregon (Fort 

 Klamath, Camp Harney, Haines and Dalles) ; Washington (Kiona, 



