62 
NUMENIUS HUDSONICUS. 
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 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 whistling on their 
march to the north, as if conversing with one another 
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, sparkling in the sun, pro- 
duces altogether a very pleasing spectacle. 
In the month of June, while the dewberries 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 
innumerable on the hills about Chatteux Bay, on the 
Labrador coast, from August the 9th to September 6th, 
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 Septem- 
ber.* About this time they return, in accumulated 
numbers, to the shores of New Jersey, whence they 
finally depart for the south early in November. 
Philosophical Transactions , lxii, 411. 
