100 
ESQUIMAUX CURl.EW. 
salt marshes, muddy shores and inlets, feeding on small worms 
and minute shell-fish. They are most commonly seen on mud 
flats at low water, in company with various other waders; and 
at high water roam along the marshes. They fly high, and with 
great rapidity. A few are seen in June, and as late as the be- 
ginning of July, when they generally move off towards the north. 
Their appearance on these occasions is very interesting: they 
collect together from the marshes as if by premeditated design, 
rise to a great height in the air, usually about an hour before 
sunset, and forming in one vast line, keep up a constant whis- 
tling on their march to the north, as if conversing with one an- 
other to render the journey more agreeable. Their flight is then 
more slow and regular, that the feeblest may keep up with the 
line of march, while the glittering of their beautifully speckled 
wings, spax’kling in the sun, produces altogether a very pleas- 
ing spectacle. 
In the month of June, while the dew-berries are ripe, these 
birds sometimes frequent the fields in company with the Long- 
billed Curlews, where brambles abound, soon get very fat, and 
are at that time excellent eating. Those who wish to shoot them, 
fix up a shelter of brushwood in the middle of the field, and by 
that means kill great numbers. In the early part of spring, and 
indeed during the whole time that they frequent the marshes, 
feeding on shell-fish, they are much less esteemed for the table. 
Pennant informs us, that they were seen in flocks innumera- 
ble on the hills about Chatteux bay, on the Labrador coast, 
from August the ninth to September sixth, when they all dis- 
appeared, being on their way from their northern breeding place. 
— He adds, “they kept on the open grounds, fed on the empe- 
trum nigrum, and were very fat and delicious. ” They arrive 
at Hudson’s Bay in April, or early in May; pair and breed to 
the north of Albany fort among the woods, return in August to 
the marshes, and all disappear in September.* About this time 
they return in accumulated numbers to the shores of New Jer- 
sey, whence they finally depart for the south early in November. 
* Phil. Trans. LXII, 411. 
