FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



for it on the surface (though I have seen them 

 doing that also), but probing for it. Down goes 

 their long, sickle-shaped bill into the wet sand, 

 frequently for only a fraction of its length ; and 

 often as not you may see it bring up a squirming 

 something that looks like a shrimp or a prawn. 



This the bird does not at once swallow, as you 

 might have expected it to do. Instead, it drops 

 its prey upon the sand, picks it up and shakes it, 

 drops it again, and so on, the unfortunate victim 

 all the while struggling to get free, till suddenly 

 a final jerk and a gulp, and it disappears down 

 the long bill. Of the precise reason for all these 

 preliminaries I am ignorant. Possibly the crusta- 

 cean must be held in a certain position before it 

 can be comfortably swallowed. Certainly it is not 

 killed in the process, for it wriggles to the last 

 moment. 



I have known a flock of fifteen curlews to take 

 possession of a certain short stretch of the beach, 

 with nothing but a few rods of low sand-hills 

 between them and the noisy asphalt boulevard, 

 and hold it for the greater part of a day, flying 

 out to sea for a little distance when driven to it 

 by too close a passer-by, and immediately return- 

 ing. That was a day, no doubt, when the fishing 

 was exceptionally good, and they were in the 

 condition of a boy I once knew, who could not 

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