EXPEDITION UP THE GANDER RIVER 87 



departs in October, after the breeding season. A regular 

 winter visitor to America and the West Indies, it is there 

 known as the "tell-tale," "tell-tale tattler," "winter yellow- 

 leg," and " stone-snipe." The birds are commonly seen in 

 Newfoundland singly or in small parties of four or five. 

 They love to run about the stones, catching flies, or upon 

 the boggy and sandy shores of the lakes, where their atti- 

 tudes and movements much resemble our native greenshank. 

 I have seen a party on feed sweeping their bills from side 

 to side in the shallow water, after the manner of the avocet, 

 and thus they obtain minute insects. When you approach 

 a small flock they become very noisy, uttering a harsh note, 

 something like the cry of the greenshank, but louder. If 

 " cornered " in the angle of a lake or stream, they run 

 anxiously to and fro, bobbing up and down with their bodies 

 just like the redshank. In the British Isles it has only 

 occurred once, namely at Scilly, in September 1906. 



In the afternoon we came to a place where the sides of 

 the river were broken, low-lying, and full of swamps covered 

 with long grass and alder. So I kept a sharp look-out, 

 sitting down constantly to spy ahead, and pausing to exa- 

 mine the broken leads where stags had been in the habit 

 of breaking down from the forest to the river. I had come 

 to the mouth of the Great Gull River, and the canoes had 

 just caught me up, when, giving a glance across the stream, I 

 saw the white stern of a deer feeding away round the corner 

 of an island. 



Saunders paddled me across the stream, and I landed on 

 the marsh where the animal had disappeared. Walking 

 rapidly up-wind, there was no sign of it, however, so we 

 continued our way up a branch stream, commanding another 

 island containing a dense alder thicket. I was about to 



