It is a restless active bird and gleans its food with great nimbleness, and seems to be fond of continually changing its position. Soon after alighting they collect together and make a short excursion over the water, again alighting a short distance from where they had previously taken wing. During their aerial excursions, when whirling about, they crowd so close together that many are killed at a single shot. On one of these occasions Mr. Brasher informs me that he killed 52 by discharging both barrels into a flock. This number is greater than I ever before heard of; but from 10 to 15 is not unusual. Wilson (1832), writing when shore birds were abundant, says of this flocking habit: These birds, in conjunction with several others, sometimes collect together in such flocks, as to seem, at a distance, a large cloud of thick smoke, varying in form and appearance every instant, while it performs its evolutions in air. As this cloud descends and courses along the shores of the ocean, with great rapidity, in a kind of waving, serpentine flight, alternately throwing its dark and white plumage to the eye, it forms a very grand and interesting appearance. At such times the gunners make prodigious slaughter among them; while, as the showers of their companions fall, the whole body often alight, or descend to the surface with them, till the sportsman is completely satiated with destruction. Suckley (1860) found them equally abundant in the Puget Sound region, for he writes: Early in the season, before they have been rendered wild by being much shot at, I have observed that upon a volley being fired into a flock the unharmed birds in terror sweep around in several circles, and hovering "_bunch_," as the sportsmen say, over their wounded companions, and sometimes realight with them. At the moment of their hovering in a compact body over the wounded is the time generally seized to fire the reserved barrels; two or three shots will frequently bring down from 30 to 60 birds; and I have known one instance where an officer of the Army bagged 96 birds from one discharge of his fowling piece. After being fired into once or twice the flocks, learning to avoid sympathizing with their dead and wounded, become shy and wary.