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Sept (Sing Sing A V) (II)

Sing Sing, A. V.

Eggs, three to four, olive clay-color or brownish ashy, spotted or blotched with chocolate, 2.58 x 1.85. "These birds, as a rule, inhabit the muddy shores and moist grassy flats and plains, but often frequent and breed upon the uplands remote from water. Their food consists of worms, crickets, beetles, grasshoppers, small snails, crabs, and crawfish; the latter they reach for with their long bills and pull them out of their holes; and I have seen them probe for and unearth the larvæ of the beetles and other forms of life that in the spring come to or near the surface preparatory to transformation. While feeding they move about with an easy carriage. "Their flight is not rapid but well sustained, with regular strokes of the wings, and when going a distance usually high and in a triangular form, uttering now and then their loud, prolonged whistling note, so often heard during the breeding season; before alighting, suddenly drop nearly to the ground, then gather, and with a rising sweep gracefully alight" (Goss). 265. Numenius hudsonicus Lath. HUDSONIAN CURLEW; JACK