136 SHORE BIRDS 



longer these helpless and heedless little birds would soon have 

 been exterminated from our bird fauna. To-day the species 

 mentioned above are found very thinly sprinkled throughout 

 the whole eastern United States, and they breed northward 

 quite up to the Arctic Barren Grounds. Wherever they are, 

 they are interesting birds, and worthy of your friendship. 



The Long-Billed Curlew^ is a bird which has caused 

 much wonderment and many guesses in the middle West, 

 where on the virgin prairies it once was frequently seen. 

 This bird's trick of holding its wings high above its back for 

 two or three seconds after it alights upon the ground always 

 attracts special attention. Its cry, also, oft repeated in 

 spring, is very weird and peculiar, and well calculated to make 

 the bird remembered. 



This bird once was common on the rolling prairies of Iowa, 

 regardless of ponds or streams, where it sought every sort of 

 animal life small enough to be swallowed. It is easily recog- 

 nized, even in flight, by its long, curved bill. In its form, its 

 beak and its legs, it is almost a perfect counterpart of a typical 

 ibis, but it has the mechanically mottled plumage of a typical 

 shore bird. Although by some ornithologists this bird is 

 credited to the whole length and breadth of the United States, 

 there certainly are some very wide regions from which it is 

 totally absent. In various localities it has various names, 

 some of which are Sickle Bill, Sabre Bill, Smoker, Spanish 

 Curlew and Mowyer. 



This bird is very sympathetic toward its wounded mates, 



1 Nu-men'i-m lon-gi-ros'tris. Average length, about 23 inches; bill of adult 

 bird, about 8 inches. 



