LONG-BILLED CURLEW. 
97 
the wounded are sure to detain them until the gunner has made 
repeated shots and great havoc among them. 
This species is said to breed in Labrador, and in the neigh- 
bourhood of Hudson’s Bay. A few instances have been known 
of one or two pair remaining in the salt marshes of Cape May 
all summer. A person of respectability informed me, that he 
once started a Curlew from her nest, which was composed of a 
little dry grass, and contained four eggs, very much resembling 
in size and colour those of the Mud Hen, or Clapper Rail. This 
was in the month of July. Cases of this kind are so rare, that 
the northern regions must be considered as the general breeding 
place of this species. 
The Long-billed Curlew is twenty-five inches in length, and 
three feet three inches in extent, and when in good order weighs 
about thirty ounces; but individuals differ greatly in this respect; 
the bill is eight inches long, nearly straight for half its length, 
thence curving considerably downwards to its extremity, where 
it ends in an obtuse knob that overhangs the lower mandible; 
the colour black, except towards the base of the lower, where 
it is of a pale flesh colour; tongue extremely short, differing in 
this from the Snipe; eye dark; the general colour of the plu- 
mage above is black, spotted and barred along the edge of each 
feather with pale brown; chin, line over the eye and round the 
same, pale brownish white; neck reddish brown, streaked with 
black; spots on the, breast more sparingly dispersed; belly, thighs 
and vent pale plain rufous, without any spots; primaries black 
on the outer edges, pale brown on the inner, and barred with 
black; shaft of the outer one snowy; rest of the wing pale reddish 
brown, elegantly barred with undulating lines of black; tail 
slightly rounded, of an ashy brown, beautifully marked with 
herring-bones of black; legs and naked thighs very pale light 
blue or lead colour, the middle toe connected with the two 
outer ones as far as the first joint by a membrane, and bordered 
along the sides with a thick warty edge; lining of the wing dark 
rufous, approaching a chestnut, and thinly spotted with black. 
Male and female alike in plumage. The bill continues to grow 
VOL. III. — o 
