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- 
winged 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 
select 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 
already 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 
