60 
NUMENIUS LONGIROSTRIS. 
of which a whole flock may sometimes he enticed 
within gunshot, while the cries of 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 
neighbourhood 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 resem- 
bling 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 plumage 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 dis- 
persed ; belly, thighs, and vent, pale plain rufous, with- 
out 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 
