386 SHORE BIRDS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 



Numenius Hudsonius — Hudson's curlew. 



Numenius borealis — Esquimaux curlew. 

 I have not mentioned in this list Schinze's sand piper, although 

 ray notes give him at Halifax, August, 186-i. I have no distinct 

 recollection of the bird, or of seeing Dunlin's, an enlarged copy 

 of it, in Nova Scotia. It is very rare here or not a true species. 

 I think there is Dunlin immature bird in the Halifax Museum. 

 Of all the shore birds that grace our landscape, as I have before 

 said, the peeps are the most pleasing. The great Bay of Fundy. 

 tide that has rushed in almost cataract force through the oppos- 

 sing traps in the gut, now expanded in the Basin fills to the 

 utmost brim with a power though unseen yet quite as great. 

 every rushy estuary, and every silver sand flat of the great basin. 

 All is steeped in one bright glancing and quivering calm. The 

 peeps are lining the edges of the flats waiting for the ebb. The 

 great herons have come from their heronry twenty or thirty miles 

 on the borders of a tangled spruce lake, waiting for what the ebb 

 ma} 7 leave them. The barking, and rising and falling of the 

 crows, and squeaking of the herons from their roosts on the over- 

 hanging trees tells that the hawk (F. Columbarius), like a 

 privateer, is backing and filling and waiting his ebb, too near 



ST ' O o C 



them. These sights and sounds come down upon you as the first 

 soft ebb floats your canoe down the bay. Jf you are out pot 

 shooting, the noiseless current floats you down towards the flats, 

 now rapidly showing out of water, and covered by thousands in- 

 numerable of creeping forms. The whole host, scared by your 

 approaching canoe, with a sharp whistle rise, stretch landward a 

 few rods, then rise in the air and open into a white sparkling 

 cloud, reflecting the bright sunbeams.' Now is your time ; both 

 barrels of your breech loader, and the mitraille of mustard seed 

 shot cover the water around with the dead and dying. To 

 slowly pick up the dead and secure the living you turn home- 

 wards. From twenty-five to thirty birds, ring necks and plover 

 of several species, are enough to vex } 7 our cook and serve for a 

 pot-pie. But if you are out forapic-nic, and stowed beneath t|ie 

 bear robes, on the very bottom of your canoe, are your wife and 

 little ones, and camp kettles and tea, bread, milk and sugar, and 



