ESKIMO CURLEW 133 



land the inhabitants killed all they could and preserved them for 

 winter use, according to Mr. Berteau (Carroll, 1910), "by parboiling 

 them and packing them in tins and jars and covering them with 

 melted butter or lard." Coues (1874) tells of shooting them in Lab- 

 rador, as follows: 



Although the curlews were in such vast numbers, I did not find them so 

 tame as might be expected and as I had been led to suppose by previous repre- 

 sentations. I was never able to walk openly within shooting distance of a 

 flock, though I was told it was often done. The most successful method of 

 obtaining them is to take such a position as they will probably fly over in 

 passing from one feeding ground to another. They may then be shot with 

 ease, as they rarely fly high at such times. The pertinacity with which they 

 cling to certain feeding grounds, even when much molested, I saw strikingly 

 illustrated on one occasion. The tide was rising and about to flood a muddy 

 flat, of perhaps an acre in extent, where their favorite snails were in great 

 quantities. Although six or eight gunners were stationed upon the spot, and 

 kept up a continual round of firing upon the poor birds, they continued to 

 fly distractedly about over our heads, notwithstanding the numbers that 

 every moment fell. They seemed in terror lest they should lose their accus- 

 tomed fare of snails that day. On another occasion, when the birds had been 

 so harassed for several hours as to deprive them of all opportunity of feeding, 

 great numbers of them retired to a very small island, or rather a large pile 

 of rocks, a few hundred yards from the shore, covered with seaweed and, of 

 course, with snails. Flock after flock alighted on it, till it was completely 

 covered with the birds, which there, in perfect safety, obtained their morning 

 meal. 



I can remember hearing my father tell of the great shooting they 

 used to have on " the plains " at Cohasset when I was a small boy, 

 about 1870. As he has now gone to the happy hunting grounds I 

 can not give the exact figures, but he saw a wagon loaded full of 

 '• dough birds " shot on the plains in one day. 



The greatest killings were made on the western plains during the 

 spring migration, which Professor Swenk (1915) describes as 

 follows : 



During such flights the slaughter of these poor birds was appalling and 

 almost unbelievable. Hunters would drive out from Omaha and shoot the 

 birds without mercy until they had literally slaughtered a wagonload of them, 

 the wagons being actually fllled, and often with the sideboards on at that. 

 Sometimes when the flight was unusually heavy and the hunters were well 

 supplied with ammunition their wagons were too quickly and easily filled, so 

 whole loads of the birds would be dumped on the prairie, their bodies forming 

 piles as large as a couple of tons of coal, where they would be allowed to rot 

 while the hunters proceeded to refill their wagons with fresh victims, and thus 

 further gratify their lust of killing. The compact flocks and tameness of the 

 birds made this slaughter possible, and at each shot usually dozens of the birds 

 would fall. In one specific instance a single shot from an old muzzle-loading 

 shotgun into a flock of these curlews as they veered by the hunter brought down 

 28 birds at once, while for the next half mile every now and then a fatally 

 wounded bird would drop to the ground dead. So dense were the flocks when 



