38 Proceedings of the 



In hunting these curlew, the field glass was used by the hunters 

 to follow their flights. The fields where they were prone to 

 gather were patrolled many times during the day, and carefully 

 scanned with the glass to discover the flocks on the ground. 

 When the birds came in they would be up quite high, perhaps 

 from two or three hundred yards to a quarter of a mile, and in 

 preparing to alight they would turn and wheel, towering in the 

 air while they whistled softly, would ho\er a while, and then 

 all drop and come down, flying along over the ground for a short 

 distance before alighting. The birds wouM always alight all at 

 once and very close together, and if the day were warm they would 

 sit down very close together on the ground, forming bunches, 

 when they could be readily discovered with the field glass and 

 approached close enough to get a shot. 



There was no difficulty in getting quite close to the sitting 

 birds, perhaps within twenty-five or thirty-five yards, and when 

 at about this distance the hunters would wait for them to arise 

 on their feet, which was the signal for the first volley of shots. 

 The startled birds would rise and circle abovit the field a few 

 times, affording ample opportunity for further murderous dis- 

 charge of the guns, and sometimes would realight on the same 

 field, when the attack would be repeated. Air. Wheeler has killed 

 as many as thirty-seven birds with a pump gun at one rise. They 

 weighed just about one pound each when they were fat. Some- 

 times the bunch would be seen with the glass alighting in a field 

 two or three mile? away, wdien the hunters would at once drive 

 to that field with a horse and buggy as rapidly as they could, 

 relocate the birds, get out and resume the fusillade and slaughter. 

 On rainv days the l)irds would fly restlessly from one field to 

 another, moving about in this way most of the day and seeming 

 unusually plentiful because of being so much in the air. 



Other observers in the North Platte country corroborate the ob- 

 servations of Mr. Wheeler as to the comparative infrequency of 

 this bird north of the Platte river during these flights of the 70"s 

 as compared with the enormous flocks found in the South Platte 

 region. Removmg from Omaha to West Point in 1869, Profes- 

 sor Bruner recalls that though he noted the birds each spring the 



