UPLAND SHOOTING. 99 



them are liable to suffer severely Several gentlemen, of New 

 Orleans have assured me that they have seen persons at dinner 

 obliged to leave the room at once, under such circumstances as 

 cannot vv^ell be described here. When flavored vi^ith the ripe 

 strawberries on which they have fed, their jiesh is truly deli- 

 cious. 



" This species performs its migrations by night as well as by 

 day. Its flight is rather swift, and well sustained. While tra- 

 velling, it generally flies so high as to be beyond the reach of 

 the gun ; but, if the weather be cloudy, or if it blow hard, it 

 flies lower, and may be easily shot. It generally proceeds in 

 straggling bands, and moves along with continuous easy beats 

 of its wings, but sails as it were, when about to alight, as well 

 as during the love season. 



" As long ago as 1805 and 1806, I observed this species 

 breeding in the meadows and green fields of my plantation of 

 Millgrove, near the banks of the Perkioming Creek. Since 

 then, I have known of its rearing broods in different parts of 

 Pennsylvania, in the State of New York, and in various dis- 

 tricts to the Eastward, as far as the confines of Maine ; but I did 

 not find it in Newfoundland or Labrador ; and I have reason to 

 believe that it does not breed to the south of Maryland. 



" I have found the eggs of this bird laid on the bare earth, in 

 a hollow, scooped out to the depth of about an inch and a half, 

 near the roots of a tuft of rank grass, in the middle of a mea- 

 dow ; and have seen some nests of the same species formed of 

 loosely-arranged grasses, and placed almost beneath low bushes, 

 growing on poor, elevated ridges, furnished with a scanty vege- 

 tation. When disturbed while on its nest, but unobserved, it 

 runs thirty or forty yards, and then flies off, as if severely 

 wounded. Should it have young, its attempts to decoy you 

 away are quite enough to induce you to desist from distressing 

 it. The eggs measure an inch and five and a-half eighths by an 

 inch and a quarter in their greatest breadth. In form they re- 

 semble those of the Totanus MaculariuSy being broadly rounded 

 at one end and rather pointed at the other ; their surface smoothj 



