SHORT-BILLED CURLEW. 
23 
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 beginning of 
July, when they generally move off towards the north. Their ap- 
pearance on these occasions is very interesting : they collect to- 
gether 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 whistling on their 
way to the north, as if conversing with one another to render the 
journey more agreeable. Their flight is then more slow and re- 
gular, that the feeblest may keep up with the line of march ; while 
the glittering of their beautifully speckled wings, sparkling in the 
sun, produces altogether a veiy pleasing 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 the Eskimaux Curlews “ were seen in 
flocks innumerable on the hills about Chatteux bay, on the Labra- 
dor coast, from August the ninth to September sixth, when they all 
disappeared, being on their way from their northern breeding 
place.” — He adds, “ they kept on the open grounds, fed on the 
empetrum 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 
Arct. Zool. vol. 2, p, 163. — Phil. Trans. LXII, 411. 
