444 GAME BIBDS OF CALIFORNIA 



searching for nests as he will almost invariably "point" away from 

 the nest. The female, squatted close to the ground, will remain on 

 the nest until the observer is quite near (and in exceptional instances 

 can be stroked while on the nest), but thereupon she will flutter away, 

 performing the broken-wing ruse, or run along the ground with 

 lowered head and bill almost touching the surface (Silloway, loc. cit.). 

 In Siskiyou County, California, Feilner (1865, p. 428) relates 

 that "When driven from the nest by the hunting of the dog it dis- 

 plays great sagacity by leading the dog a circuitous path from the 

 nest for some distance and then suddenly flying off. At first it hops 

 or flutters along like a young bird, and just when the dog is about 

 to pounce upon it, off it flies, uttering its note, cooi, cooi, sounding 

 like a contraction of go away." Bent (1907&, p. 427) records find- 

 ing downy young on the prairies of Saskatchewan, June 1, 1905, and 

 June n, and 18, 1906: 



When large enough to run the downy young are adepts in the art of hiding; 

 they seem to disappear entirely even in the short grass; after hunting care- 

 fully, for fully half an hour, over a limited area where we had seen one vanish, 

 we gave it up and walked away, when we were surprised to see the youngster 

 get up and run away from the very spot [where] we had been hunting hardest. 

 Both parents always showed remarkable devotion and solicitude in utter disregard 

 of their own safety. We saw an interesting exhibition of this one day which 

 probably succeeded in saving the lives of the young from a prowling coyote. 

 The curlew was decoying the coyote away by feigning lameness, flopping along 

 on the ground a few yards ahead of him, but always managing to barely escape 

 him. We watched them for some time until they finally disappeared over a 

 hill, fully half a mile from where we first saw them. 



In Montana, Cameron (1907, pp. 254-255) says that if the female 

 flutters along the ground it indicates that she has eggs close by, but 

 if she flies about the intruder the young are hatched and in the 

 vicinity. After the young can fly, at the end of July, old and young 

 begin to gather together, and flocks of as many as one hundred are 

 formed prior to migration. Their characteristic wariness then becomes 

 evident again. 



Wickersham (1902, p. 355) states that the food of the Long-billed 

 Curlew in the East consists of crawfish, small crabs, snails, peri- 

 winkles, toads, worms, larvae, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, cater- 

 pillars, and at times spiders, flies and butterflies. Worms and larvae 

 are pulled out of the ground by means of the long bill, the tip of 

 which is thought by some writers to be sensitive and to be used like 

 that of the snipe in grasping things beneath the surface. Berries of 

 various sorts are picked from low bushes, and fl.ying insects are pur- 

 sued and captured on the wing. E. R. Kalmbach (in letter) states 

 that a few seeds of plants of the mallow family have been found in 

 stomachs of this bird. He doubts that butterflies are an item of 

 importance in the food of the Long-billed Curlew. 



