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of its movements and habits, particularly during the breeding-season. We will begin with the 

 opening of the spring season, when the birds that have wintered on or near our southern border, 

 together with the numbers that passed in the fall preceding into tropical regions, all alike feel 

 the mysterious impulse and start in. immense parties for the north. They travel by all routes, 

 both coastwise and interior ; but I should guess, from the unnumbered thousands that pass over 

 the grand prairies lying between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, that this was their 

 great highway. There the ' Prairie-Pigeon,' as it is generally called in the West, is much more 

 abundant than it is in settled districts eastward. Flock after flock of great extent passes in May 

 through Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Dakota, accompanied by equal numbers of 

 Esquimaux Curlews and Golden Plover, flecking the prairies everywhere. We can at this season 

 scarcely touch the prairie anywhere but there are these birds in profusion. Hardly exceeded in 

 excellence of flesh, gentle and unsuspicious, of lithe and graceful shape, and prettily variegated 

 colours, the Bartram's Tattlers are deservedly especial favourites, both with the naturalist and 

 the sportsman. If the truth must out, altogether too many are destroyed at this season, when 

 they ought, in policy no less than in mercy, to be unmolested ; but few can resist the tempting 

 shots that the birds offer. They scarcely seem to know fear, but will stand gazing at the passer- 

 by with the utmost unconcern, offering the fairest possible marks. By the end of May those 

 that are to breed further north have passed on, while the remainder have paired and are about 

 nesting. 



" The pairs keep close company, rambling through the grass often side by side, and fre- 

 quently uttering their curious love-notes. ' The grand passion ' makes them almost musical at 

 this time, such is its potency to draw songs of gladness from throats not often tuneful. The 

 note peculiar to this period is a long-drawn, soft, mellow whistle, of almost mournful cadence, 

 sounding, when heard at a distance, like the noise of the wind, and of wonderful effect upon the 

 hearer when it comes to his ear over the solitude of the boundless prairie. It is oftenest emitted 

 at the close of a flight, at the moment when the bird, just alighted, throws up its long, thin, 

 pointed wings preparatory to adjusting them over the back ; and not seldom it comes to the ear 

 in the watches of the night, when its weird quality is enhanced by the darkness, till we almost 

 fancy we hear the wailing of a lost spirit. Besides this outcry the Tattler has a harsh scream, 

 much like that of others of its tribe, quickly and often repeated, when, the nesting-places being 

 invaded, the birds hover overhead on anxious wing, soliciting respite. 



" In Dakota, where I became familiar with their breeding-habits, the birds lay early in June ; 

 they are pretty constant in this matter, nearly all the nests being filled by the second week in 

 that month. Here only one brood is raised each season. The nest is hard to find — not that it 

 is concealed with special artifice, but that there is upon the broad prairie absolutely nothing to 

 guide a search, so that the finding is almost necessarily a matter of chance. It is curious, too, 

 how great concealment is effected by the few flimsy blades of grass that may curve over the nest, 

 just shading the eggs till their variegation blends with the ground and the herbage. There is 

 nothing peculiar in either the site or construction of the nest ; it is a slight depression of the 

 ground, lined with a leaf or two, or a few blades of grass. I have stumbled on nests far, out in 

 the prairie, away from any land-marks, but oftener found them near some pool or slough, or by 

 the edge of a piece of wood or weedy patch — always, however, in an open and perfectly dry spot. 



