'^ A FLOCK OF CURLEWS.;; 9I 



a red-sandstone island. On this patch of rock, whose 

 soft, crumbling surface they bore in all directions, mak- 

 ing galleries about a foot from the surface, they have 

 bred from time immemorial. However wild they are 

 on the waves, here they suffer themselves to be pulled 

 forth from their holes and summarily choked by ardent 

 ornithologists without a squeak of resistance. 



Indeed, June and J-uly, or the first of August, is no 

 time to come to Labrador for birds : all the ducks are 

 among the inland ponds, breeding. The sea-birds that 

 breed here gather in one place sixty miles down the coast, 

 on the Bird Islands, forming the Mecatina group. There 

 are few to molest their nests, and they live in compara- 

 tive quiet. Let a crew visit a breeding-place in the middle 

 •of June, and they can very quickly load a boat with eggs. 

 It is said that vessels come up here from Boston every 

 year, and load up with eggs to carry back to the States. 



About the middle of August that beautiful and grace- 

 ful bird, the sea-swallow, or arctic tern, makes its appear- 

 ance, flying about the sea-cliffs, hovering over the fisher- 

 men's boats, and keeping up an interminable screeching 

 and twittering ; they are the most garrulous of gulls. 

 With them appear a few of the rarer gulls. Then the 

 ring-necked and semipalmated plover, and flocks of sand-, 

 peeps and yellow-legs gather on the flats. But the cur- 

 lews eclipse them all. We had had intimations of their 

 arrival. Already had small squadrons been seen wheel- 

 ing around the hill-tops, and now over the sea, and as 

 they advanced or retreated, their "mild mixing cadence" 

 now grew loud and near, and now waxed fainter and 

 fainter. On the afternoon of the loth of August I 

 heard the alarm of " Curlew !" and, sure enough, over 



