222 FEATHERED GAME 



curlews, when able to procure such food, are 

 very fond of berries and will travel long dis- 

 tances to obtain them. In the fall months they 

 are surprisingly fat after this diet. 



They arrive in New England, northward 

 bound, in April or the first of May, but do not 

 tarry on their journey, rarely stopping more 

 than a day or two for food and rest. Their 

 southern migration is performed more leisure- 

 ly, the birds arriving during the first half of 

 August, even the middle of July at times, and 

 lingering on through their *' vacation time" well 

 into September. 



The curlews are very popular with the shore 

 gunner and always welcome in his game bag. 

 The sportsmen of this section still speak im- 

 pressively of the great flight of these birds 

 which landed upon our coast some twenty years 

 ago. They haunted the high lands, the hay 

 fields, and the ^'upland" country generally, — 

 a matter of great surprise to the most of our 

 baymen, who had been accustomed to find them 

 mainly in the marshes and thought these places 

 their only legitimate grounds. They were mov- 

 ing southward leisurely, only going a few miles 

 each day, so that they stayed nearly a week 



