UFLAND SHOOTING. 
99 
them are liable to suffer severely. Several gentlemen of New 
Orleans have assured me that they have seen persons at dinner 
obliged to leave the room at once, under such circumstances as 
cannot well be described here. When flavored with the ripe 
strawberries on which they have fed, their flesh is truly deli¬ 
cious. 
“ This species performs its migrations by night as well as by 
day. Its flight is rather swift, and well sustained. While tra¬ 
velling, it generally flies so high as to be beyond the reach of 
the gun; but, if the weather be cloudy, or if it blow hard, it 
flies lower, and may be easily shot. It generally proceeds in 
straggling bands, and moves along with continuous easy beats 
of its wings, but sails as it were, when about to alight, as well 
as during the love season. 
u As long ago as 1805 and 1806, I observed this species 
breeding in the meadows and green fields of my plantation of 
Millgrover, near the banks of the Perkioming Creek. Since 
then, I have known of its rearing broods in different parts of 
Pennsylvania, in the State of New York, and in various dis¬ 
tricts to the Eastward, as far as the confines of Maine ; but I did 
not find it in Newfoundland or Labrador ; and I have reason to 
believe that it does not breed to the south of Maryland. 
“ I have found the eggs of this bird laid on the bare earth, in 
a hollow, scooped out to the depth of about an inch and a half, 
near the roots of a tuft of rank grass, in the middle of a mea¬ 
dow ; and have seen some nests of the same species formed of 
loosely-arranged grasses, and placed almost beneath low bushes, 
growing on poor, elevated ridges, furnished with a scanty vege 
tation. When disturbed while on its nest, but unobserved, it 
runs thirty or forty yards, and then flies off, as if severely 
wounded. Should it have young, its attempts to decoy you 
away are quite enough to induce you to desist from distressing 
it. The eggs measure an inch and five and a-half eighths by an 
inch and a quarter in their greatest breadth. In form they re¬ 
semble those of the Totanus Macularius , being broadly rounded 
at one end and rather pointed at the other ; their surface smooth, 
