318 TELL-TALE TATLER. 



savannahs or prairies, there you will find them actively employed, wading so 

 far into the water as to seem as if they were swimming. If just alighted 

 after ever so short a flight, they hold their wings upright for a considerable 

 time, as if doubtful of not having obtained good footing. Closing their 

 wings, they then move nimbly about the pool, and are seen catching small 

 fishes, insects, worms, or snails, which they do with rapidity and a consider- 

 able degree of grace, for their steps are light, and the balancing or vibratory 

 motion of their body, while their head is gently moved backwards and for- 

 wards, is very pleasing to the eye. 



I have often observed these birds on large logs floating on the Mississippi, 

 and moving gently with the current, and this sometimes in company with 

 the Snowy Heron, Ardea candidissima, or the American Crow, Corvus 

 Americanus. In such situations, they procure shrimps and the fry of fishes. 

 In autumn, they are extremely prone to betake themselves to the margins of 

 our most sequestered lakes in the interior of Louisiana and Kentucky, where 

 the summer heat has left exposed great flats of soft sandy mud abounding 

 with food suited to their appetite, and where they are much less likely to 

 be disturbed than when on the marshes on the sea-shore, or on the margins 

 of rivers. When they have been some time in the salt-marshes, and have 

 eaten indiscriminately small shell-fish, worms, and fry, they acquire a dis- 

 agreeable fishy taste, and being at the same time less fat, are scarcely fit for 

 the table. They are social birds, and frequently mingle with other waders, 

 as well as with the smaller ducks, such as the Blue-winged and Green-wing- 

 ed Teals. In the salt-marshes they associate with Curlews, Willets, and 

 other species, with which they live in peace, and on the watchfulness of 

 which they depend quite as much as on their own. 



The flight of the Tell-tale Godwit, or "Great Yellow-Shank," as it is 

 generally named in the Western Country, is swift, at times elevated, and, 

 when necessary, sustained. They pass through the air with their necks and 

 legs stretched to their full length, and roam over the places which they se- 

 lect several times before they alight, emitting their well-known and easily 

 imitated whistling notes, should any suspicious object be in sight, or if they 

 are anxious to receive the answer of some of their own tribe that have alrea- 

 dy alighted. At such times, any person who can imitate their cries can 

 easily check their flight, and in a few moments induce them to pass or to 

 alight within shooting distance. This I have not unfrequently succeeded in 

 doing, when they were, at the commencement of my calls, almost half a mile 

 distant. Nay, I have sometimes seen them so gentle, that on my killing 

 several in a flock, the rest would only remove a few yards. 



I have always found that the cries of this bird were louder and more fre- 

 quent during the period of its breeding, when scarcely any birds were in the 



