Nebraska Oriiithnl agists' Union 37 



their flight that one could scarcely throw a brick or other missle 

 into it without striking a bird. 



The decade 1870-1880 witnessed the beginning of the diminu- 

 tion of these great flocks of Eskimo Curlew. In addition to the 

 numerous gunners who shot these birds for local consumption or 

 simply for the love of killing, there developed a class of profes- 

 sional market hunters who made it a business to follow the "flight 

 birds" as they made their annual journey across the state each 

 spring. Mr. Wheeler, living near Norfolk, jiursued this business 

 during the latter '70's, and his observations, transmitted to me by 

 Mr. L. Sessions of that place, describe graphically the status of 

 the bird at this period and also the typical methods of the market 

 hunter in securing these birds. 



The chief feeding grounds of these curlews at the time Mr. 

 Wheeler came to Nebraska (1877) was in York, Fillmore and 

 Hamilton counties, and their heaviest lines of northward migra- 

 tion across the state was between the 97th and 98th meridians. 

 The birds were much less numerous north of the Platte river 

 than on the South Platte feeding grounds, although they were 

 noted there, but not in large flocks. One spring, about 1879, 

 while working on the Marshall Field ranch in Madison county, 

 following a heavy south wind, birds which seemed to have been 

 driven past their feeding grounds by the wind were seen flying 

 southwardly, very close to the ground, apparently going back to 

 this South Platte feeding ground, llie birds used to come in 

 about the 18th to the 25th of April, all arriving between these 

 dates, and would remain until about the 15th to the 25th of May 

 Early in the season, when they first arrived, they would frequent 

 the burnt-over prairies, where they would occur in flocks of from 

 a dozen to three or four hundred. As the season advanced the 

 dififerent smaller flocks would bunch up until as many as a thou- 

 sand birds had assembled, but this assemblage was obviotisly 

 made up of many small flocks. In later years when these prairies 

 commenced to be extensively broken up and farmed, the curlews 

 used to feed a great deal in the open wheat fields, and toward the 

 last they were found very frequently in tame meadows. 



