BIRD NOTES AFIELD 



head and breast of pure white, shading to ashen on the sides. 



While we have been watching the phalaropes in the land- 

 locked pools the tide has been imperceptibly ebbing to the 

 lowest point, until now it has been held in suspense and is 

 mysteriously and insidiously creeping back. The breeze has 

 been freshening with the incoming water and the gulls com- 

 mence to fly over the point. Far out on the flats the long-billed 

 curlews are making the most of their opportunity and are 

 probing the soft mud with their enormously elongated beaks, 

 sometimes thrusting them down quite to the base and bringing 

 out of the slime many a tempting morsel. In their eager search 

 for tit-bits they wade out into the water as far as the tops of 

 their legs. Large flocks, sometimes numbering fifty or more 

 individuals, frequently congregate about a favorable feeding- 

 place. The long-billed curlew is the largest of our waders, 

 measuring about two feet in length, and is instantly recogniz- 

 able by its abnormally long, slender and somewhat curving 

 bill. It is colored in general a brownish cinnamon or rufous, 

 darkest on the back and lightest on the throat. Another 

 species, the Hudsonian curlew, is found, although far less 

 commonly, about the bay shore. It is much smaller cind has 

 a considerably shorter bill. 



Among the other waders which tarry upon the flats until 

 reluctantly driven off by the incoming tide are the black- 

 bellied plover and the black-necked stilt; but as the breeze 

 freshens and the tide comes stealthily lapping in, the shore- 

 birds grow more and more restless, and the swimming birds 

 come flying past on the lookout for pools of deep water. A 

 male butterball duck passes on whistling wings, showing his 

 fine black and white plumage. Then follows a flock of big, 



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