The Hudsonian Curlew 247 



November. As with all the shore-birds, the early flights are composed 

 almost entirely of adult birds, and the flights of young birds follow, on an 

 average, about a month later. 



The Pacific Coast flights occur on corresponding dates. The early 

 flights of adults reach California about the middle of July; and on the 

 coast of Peru they make their appearance early in August. Young birds 

 are common about Nome, Alaska, until the first of September, when 

 large numbers are brought into the markets, with a few Bristle-thighed 

 Curlews. 



Very little seems to be known about the nesting habits of the Hud- 

 sonian Curlew. Mr. MacFarlane found them breeding on the treeless 

 Arctic tundra near the mouth of the Anderson River, where he took 

 several sets of eggs late in June and early in July ; the nests were merely 

 depressions in the ground lined with a few withered leaves. J. O. 

 Stringer described a nest found on an island in the 



Nest and 

 Eggs 



lower Mackenzie River, as a pile of grass, moss, and 

 weeds. Joseph Grinnell reported this species as 

 breeding in the Kowak Valley, Alaska, between June 14 and 20, 1899. 



The eggs vary in color from creamy drab to brownish buff, and are 

 more or less heavily spotted with various shades of brown. Young birds 

 in the fall may be distinguished from adults by their shorter bills, and 

 by the conspicuous buff spots on the upper parts. 



The Hudsonian Curlew is more of a littoral species than either of 

 the others, and seems to prefer to frequent and feed on the seacoast. 

 At low tide it resorts to the recently uncovered flats and beaches, where 

 it can pick up marine insects, worms, and small crustaceans. George 

 H. Mackay says of its feeding habits in Massachusetts : "The Hudsonian 

 Curlew is a tide bird, frequenting the sand flats near the edge of the water, 

 when they become uncovered, and resorting to marshes and uplands 

 when driven from the former by the in-coming tide. 

 They feed on fiddler crabs, grasshoppers, and the large 

 gray sand-spiders (Lycosa) which live in holes in the 

 sand among the beach-grass adjacent to headlands ; huckleberries, which 

 they pick from the bushes; and on beetles. All this is usually mixed 

 \vith coarse gravel. 



When a flock of these birds is on the ground where they have been 

 feeding, they become scattered, twenty-five or thirty birds covering fifteen 

 or twenty yards apiece. At such times they do not appear to be par- 

 ticularly active, moving about in a rather slow, stately manner, although 

 once in a while I have seen them run." On their inland resorts they 

 prefer to frequent the shores of lakes, ponds, and marshes, but are fre- 

 quently seen on the upland pastures, feeding on grasshoppers, beetles, 

 or berries. 



The flight of the Hudsonian Curlew is rather slow and steady, but 

 strong and protracted. When migrating, they usually fly high in the air 

 in small flocks, much after the manner of ducks and geese. During the 

 spring migration on the coast of South Carolina, they congregate in im- 



