260 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
Food.— Chiefly grasshoppers but also beetles and grubs, worms, spiders, flies, 
crickets, and other insects and their larvae; snails, small crabs, crawfish, shrimps, 
toads, and wild berries and seeds. 
General Habits. —On the Bolles Ranch near Carlsbad in the fall 
migration of 1901 we saw a flock of forty-four Curlews, of whichever 
form, swinging around over the irrigated fields and coming down to 
them; and in another place saw half a dozen in a large flock of Yellow- 
legs, the great, round-backed Curlews, their long bills extended before 
them, walking around with dignified demeaner in the midst of the 
restless, ever-shifting, head-bobbing throng of smaller birds. In 
one place a bathing Y ellow-legs splashing with gusto apparently spat¬ 
tered a Curlew, for the big fellow made a disapproving pass at him 
with his long bill. When a Falcon appeared in the sky, eight Curlews 
and hundreds of Yellow-legs rose, the Curlews uttering stirring clarion 
calls as they flew. After circling back, on alighting, they raised their 
wings straight over their backs with beautiful effect (1910a, p. 162). 
Farther north in the Pecos Valley, where in dry sections the great 
birds come to wells for water, Mr. Ligon was told of a nest of the 
Long-billed Curlew found by a Mexican sheep-herder on a flat near 
the river, with four brownish eggs “fully as large as those of a guinea.” 
Though seeing the birds familiarly, the people of the region apparently 
were not molesting them (MS). A nest found by another sheep-herder 
in Guadalupe County, Mr. Pope says, was three hundred yards from 
a small water hole. Their selection of a breeding ground, Mr. Ligon 
finds, is affected by the condition of the range forage in spring. If 
a former breeding range is dry, the birds are apt to shift to areas where 
vegetation is green” (1927, p. 149). 
Near Montoya a pair of the Long-bills with half grown young were 
discovered as we drove over the plains June 20, 1903. The old birds 
made a great outcry, circling around us and flying low ahead of our 
horseman, while the whitish, downy young vanished—big as they 
were—so completely that we were unable to find them, though we 
hunted carefully for some time, and the only vegetation on the plain 
was the low yellow snake weed ( Gutierrezia ) and the short soapweed 
(Yucca glauca). Two other pairs were seen the same afternoon. On 
July 2, our camp man saw two or three pairs trying to drive away a 
obo from their nesting grounds. They flew at him until they drove 
him off, when they turned their attention to the wagon coming down 
the road. 
A Curlew was once seen by Mr. Bent feigning lameness to lead a 
coyote away, “flopping along on the ground a few yards ahead of him, 
but always managing barely to escape him” (1907, p. 427). 
