Dr. Coues states that this species hardly occurs in any abundance north of the Carolinas, and that it is restricted to a narrow belt along the coast of the ocean and gulf, from North Carolina throughout our entire shore to Mexico. He supposed it to stop there, and to be replaced by the _macrurus_. Though the larger proportion of these birds pass beyond our southern boundaries to spend the winter, a few, chiefly old males, are resident in North Carolina throughout the year. In the spring the females are the first to appear. Just before the mating has taken place, the flocks of these birds are said to execute sudden and unaccountable evolutions, as if guided by some single commanding spirit; now hovering uncertain, then dashing impulsive, now veering in an instant, and at last taking a long, steady flight towards some distant point. During this period, Dr. Coues further informs us, their voices crack, and they utter a curious medley of notes from bass to falsetto, a jingling, unmusical jargon that is indescribable. The laying-season is said to be at its height during the latter part of April. He found in no instance more than six eggs in a nest, nor less than three. He thinks that they have two, and perhaps three, broods in a season, as he found it not uncommon to meet with newly fledged birds in September. These birds are eminently gregarious at all seasons of the year, and at certain seasons assemble in large flocks. They are omnivorous, eating both insects and grain, and are alternately benefactors and plunderers of the planters. In the early season they seek their food among the large salt marshes of the seaboard, and along the muddy banks of creeks and rivers. They do great damage to the rice plantations, both when the grain is in the soft state and afterwards when the ripened grain is stacked. They also feed very largely upon the small crabs called fiddlers, so common in all the mud flats, earthworms, various insects, shrimps, and other aquatic forms of the like character. A few of these birds are resident throughout the year, though the greater part retire farther south during a portion of the winter. They return in February, in full plumage, when they mate. They resort, by pairs and in companies, to certain favorite breeding-places, where they begin to construct their nests. They do not, however, even in Florida, begin to breed before April. They build a large and clumsy nest, made of very coarse and miscellaneous materials, chiefly sticks and fragments of dry weeds, sedges, and strips of bark, lined with finer stems, fibrous roots, and grasses, and have from three to five eggs. It is a very singular but well-established characteristic of this species, that no sooner is their nest completed and incubation commenced than the male birds all desert their mates, and, joining one another in flocks, keep apart from the females, feeding by themselves, until they are joined by the young birds and their mothers in the fall.