The GREATER YELLOWLEG is the best known and most loquacious of the shore "Big Birds." I have seen their graceful bodies and heard the mellow call from Nova Scotia to Florida. There is a belated "flight" along the Great South Bay in November.

Bill and I tumbled out and started breakfast by lamplight. "It's cold and rainy," informed Bill, opening the door. "Sure birds'lI be there."

"Huh! bed's here — an' it's warm."

"Want to back out?"

"Oh — no — might as well go, now we're up."

We rowed two miles to the blind. We sat. It rained. Hunger came — Pipes didn't quite cover the deficiency. Neither would be the first to squeak. No birds, no food, no warmth, no nothin' but a wind-swept marsh!

Then we heard a steady chug — it came into our creek. Smithy shoved the boat's nose into the mud, brot a large flat-basket to us and slowly lifted the cover off — without a word. There shone a large platter of hot fried eels! Long after "nymphs in the brake" are forgotten, will that memory endure.

Before they leave Long Island the subdued flutelike courtship call often suffuses the evening air over the meadows. The effect is weird if many birds are calling and always makes me think of a distant drum.

The ringing call notes are extremely penetrative and I have often heard the birds before they came into sight.