118 BULLETIN" 14 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



buff," and the upper tail coverts are barred with the same colors ; the 

 under parts are more buffy than in adults and the whole effect is 

 brighter and more variegated. 



A postjuvenal body molt in late fall or early winter, which almost 

 runs into a first prenuptial molt, produces a plumage, which can be 

 distinguished from the adult only by the faded ju venal wing coverts 

 and the bird becomes fully adult at the next postnuptial molt. 



Adults have a complete postnuptial molt, beginning with the body 

 molt in August and ending with the molt of the primaries in the win- 

 ter ; soon after the wings are molted, or from February to May they 

 have a partial prenuptial molt, including the body plumage, the tail, 

 and some of the scapulars and wing coverts. 



Food. — Hudsonian curlews are mainly shore feeders; on the 

 beaches and sand flats they pick up various insects, worms, small 

 mollusks, and crustaceans, often probing for the sand fleas in the wet 

 sand; on the mud flats they find similar animal food. I have also 

 often seen them on the marshes, or even on high, dry pasture lands, 

 such as are frequented by golden plover and Eskimo curlews, where 

 they find grasshoppers, spiders, beetles, and other insects. In South 

 Carolina we saw them at low tide on the oyster banks and on the mud 

 banks riddled with holes of fiddler crabs, on which they were doubt- 

 less feeding. In tlie Magdalen Islands I have seen them on the 

 uplands and among the sand dunes, where they were evidently eating 

 crow berries {Em'petrum iiigTuiii). They are also said to eat blue- 

 berries, dewberries, and various seeds. E. W. Hadeler tells me that 

 he once saw them feeding on the bodies of light-colored millers ; the 

 beach was lined with these moths, some dead and others alive, and 

 the curlews did not like to leave this abundant supply of food. 



Mr. Mackay (18925) says: ^ ■ 



They feed on fiddler crabs, grasshoppers, aud the large gray sand spiders 

 (Lycosa) which live in holes in the sand among the beach grass adjacent to 

 headlands, huckleberries, which they pick from the bushes, and beetles {Lach- 

 nostcrua, Scarahaeidae) , all of which are usually mixed with coarse gravel. 

 When a flock of these birds is on the ground where they have been feeding they 

 become scattered, 25 or 30 birds covering 1.5 or 20 yards' space. At such times 

 chey do not appear to be particularly active, moving about in a rather slow, 

 stately manner, although I have once in a while seen them run. 



L. L. Jewel (1913) writes: 



One of the bird surprises of my life was to see a Hudsonian curlew tiptoe and 

 catch butterflies within 20 feet of my fi-ont door at Gatun. The clearings in and 

 around tlie town seemed very attractive to these birds and they were fairly 

 tame. Marching or advancing by rushes, always with graceful dignity, some- 

 times singly but more often in groups of four or five, they foraged through the 

 shorter grass, picking up or catching on the wing their insect food. They 

 usually kept near the water's edge or well down in dry gullies, but also fed on 

 higher ground at times. 



