V2 Bird-Life in Labrador. 



display of bird intellect if ever there was anything of tliat na- 

 ture displayed in a bird. It was usually successful. The 

 cripple wino; and lame foot process were practiced and some- 

 times both at once. The usual method of dropping one's hut 

 where the bird first started from would not even succeed in 

 revealing to me the nest though the little ones, too impatient 

 to remain still for any length of time, too often revealed their 

 own hiding place in their hurry to run around among the sand 

 and grasses and hunt for food. The old birds in breeding 

 season were very tame ; we seldom molested them at this time. 

 The young were remarkably pretty creatures, and had the 

 black parts of the parents replaced with gray. The old birds 

 were very swift runners and as sly as mice. Having run for 

 some distance they would utter a soft, plaintive whistle or 

 phu-pliu and immediately take w r ing. Their long, angular 

 wings allowed of a swift, irregular yet not ungraceful flight, 

 with now the body and now the back turned full upon the 

 hunter. They presented the prettiest mark for a wing shot 

 that I ever saw, next to the tern or sea swallow. In fall they 

 fly much more wildly and are then splendid practice for the 

 sportsman. I have wasted more charges of powder in simply 

 practicing upon them than would secure a whole flock if shot 

 one by one. When I first began this target shooting I could 

 not hit one bird in a dozen ; after a great deal of wasting of 

 charges I found that by making my gun barrel follow the de- 

 scending curve of the bird and firing the moment I fairly 

 covered him, or was perhaps an inch or so ahead of him (prob- 

 ably nearer a foot), I could easilv kill four nut of every five 

 birds. They seemed to prefer to feed high up on the sand 

 flats and beaches, or, if on the mud flats, at the very edge of 

 water. They seldom gathered in flocks of any si/e, but ap- 

 peared to me to be family parties of half-a-dozen or so. The 

 people along the coast think a great deal of the bird and will 

 not allow anybody to shoot it in the breeding season. It has 

 little fear of man, often breeding within a few yards of the 

 houses. 



