450 GAME BIBDS OF CALIFORNIA 



They go about the business as our numerous fishermen do when in search 

 of bait, not looking for it on the surface (though- I have seen them doing 

 that also), but probing for it. Down goes their long, sickle-shaped bill into the 

 wet sand, frequently for only a fraction of its length; and often as not you 

 may see it bring up a squirming something that looks like a shrimp or a 

 prawn. 



This the bird does not at once swallow, as you might have expected it to 

 do. Instead, it drops its prey upon the sand, picks it up and shakes it, drops 

 it again, and so on, the unfortunate victim all the while struggling to get free, 

 till suddenly a final jerk and a gulp, and it disappears down the long bill. 

 Of the precise reason for all these preliminaries I am ignorant. Possibly the 

 crustacean must be held in a certain position before it can be comfortably 

 swallowed. Certainly it is not killed in the process, for it wriggles to the last 

 moment. 



I have known a flock of fifteen curlews to take possession of a certain 

 short stretch of the beach, with nothing but a few rods of low sand-hills 

 between them and the noisy asphalt boulevard, and hold it for the greater 

 part of a day, flying out to sea for a little distance when driven to it by too 

 close a passer-by, and immediately returning. That was a day, no doubt, when 

 the fishing was exceptionally good. . . . 



On the other hand, I have seen within the same week a flock of eighty 

 curlews on a lonesome stretch of beach beyond the city limits — and the city's 

 protection — that would not allow me to approach within two or three "gunshots. . 



A flock of curlews, for example, feeding, heads down, upon the sand, will 

 discover you instantly on the edge of a cliff overlooking the beach, say at an 

 elevation of fifty feet, and be off on the wing almost before you know it, no 

 matter how slow and noiseless your approach may have been; whereas, had 

 you been walking on the beach itself, in full sight, the chances are that they 

 would have suffered you to come moderately close upon them without betraying 

 any marked uneasiness. It has become a habit with them, apparently, to keep 

 a sharp lookout upward, perhaps because their more usual enemies come from 

 that quarter (Torrey, 1913, p. 85). 



The breeding grounds of the Hudsonian. Curlew lie far to the 

 northward, on the tundras which border the Arctic seas. The nest- 

 ing season extends from about the first of June to the first week 

 in July, as Grinnell (1900, p. 28) found a heavily incubated set in 

 the Kowak River delta, Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, June 14, 1899, and 

 Chapman (1912, p. 262) reports eggs taken east of the Anderson 

 River, Mackenzie, July 4. The nests are, according to Grinnell (loc. 

 cit. ) , always situated in " . . . a wet swale or low place in the tundra, 

 in which the clumps of grass or moss were often surrounded at their 

 bases with water. . . . The nest is simply a saucer-shaped depression 

 in the top of a low hummock of moss or grass." The eggs are fully 

 exposed to view but their coloration is usually such that they are 

 exceedingly difficult to discover. Twenty eggs measured, iu inches, 

 2.22 to 2.54 by 1.61 to 1.70, and averaged 2.36 by 1.64. The ground- 

 color is very variable, ranging from a bluish pea-green through olive- 

 buff to light olive-green. The superficial markings consist of dots, 



