HUDSONIAN CUKLEW 115 



tion is between the third week in April and the second week in May, 

 when enormous numbers (he says hundreds of thousands) may be 

 seen every day. We saw no such numbers, but numerous flocks 

 were seen every morning flying in to feed on fiddler crabs on the 

 extensive marshes and flj'ing out again at night to roost on the sand 

 bars and islands. They flew high in the air in V-shaped flocks 

 or in long irregular lines and their loud notes could he heard almost 

 constantly. 



Herbert K. Job (1905) saw them here in "scores of thousands"; 

 he spent a night at each of several little low islands — mere sand 

 bars — lying off the coast," and says : 



About half past 5 or 6 o'clock, when the sun was low in the horizon or had 

 set behind a cloud hank, the first advancing line is seen, and a string of from a 

 dozen to 50 Hndsonian curlews come scaling over the beach, to alight on the 

 bar, down at the other end. After a few minutes another flock is seen ap- 

 proaching. By half past 6 they are arriving fast, and by 7 there are two or 

 three flocks in sight all the time, some of them containing as many as 75 birds. 

 Meantime I am shooting at them as they pass, with my reflex camera, despite 

 the dull light. As may be imagined, the company on the sand has become im- 

 mense, covering many acres. They keep up a sort of murmuring noise, and 

 now and then all fly up, with a perfect storm and tumult of wings and voices, 

 soon to alight again. Even after dark they are yet arriving, as one may hear. 

 I hazard the guess that there are often 10,000 curlews at such a roost each 

 night. At the first glimmer of day they are of£ agaiu for the marshes. 



Mr. Wayne (1910) makes the following interesting suggestion: 



This species supplanted the long-bilied curlew between the years 1883 and 

 1885, for previous to these dates the former species was rare, but it gradually 

 became more abundant each year until it established itself firmly in great 

 numbers. The result was that the long-billed curlew was driven from its accus- 

 tomed range by a smaller species in the struggle for existence. The long-billed 

 curlews fed almost entirely upon fiddlers, and the Hudsouian curlew also sub- 

 sisted upon them, and as the food supply was inadequate, one species was 

 forced to seek other paths of migration. 



The Hudsonian curlew seems to be a rare migrant everywhere in 

 the interior ; some of my correspondents do not mention it at all and 

 others give only scattering records. But William I. Lyon writes to 

 me that he ^aw a flock of about 100 on May 22, 1926, in Illinois; 

 they were flying in V formation, uttering their characteristic four 

 short whistles, and breaking sometimes from a V into a line. Edwin 

 Beaupre tells me that " the foot of Amherst Island, in Lake Ontario, 

 is a favorite crossing place for these curlews in their northward 

 flight. May 24 is the date on which they may be looked for, passing 

 through this locality in one large flock." 



J. A. Munro (1911) recorcls a heavy flight which occurred at 

 Fisherman's Island, Toronto, during three days, May 24 to 26, 1910; 

 a carefid count was made of passing flocks in which over 1,000 birds 

 were recorded. Probably the main flight from the Atlantic coast 



