WATER BIRDS 



The Eskimo curlew— the dough bird of old 

 New England gunners— is a bird of the past, 

 for it is now close to extinction, although in 

 former days it sometimes visited this coast 

 in the fall in large flocks. The last record I 

 have in this region is of two shot at Newbury- 

 port in August, 1908. Audubon in his " Birds 

 of America '' says: " Previous to my voyage 

 to Labrador I had seen only a single bird of 

 that species, which was kindly given me by 

 my learned friend William Oaks Esq. of Ips- 

 wich, Massachusetts, who had procured it in 

 his immediate neighborhood, where as I have 

 since ascertained, the Esquimaux curlew 

 spends a few days in early autumn while on 

 its way southward." 



The Hudsonian curlew, however, is a not 

 uncommon migrant. It is an interesting fact 

 that young males of this species have such 

 short bills that they are mistaken for Eskimo 

 curlews, while old females have such long 

 bills that gunners report them as sickle-bills, 

 the very rare large curlew of that name. I 

 have a young male in my collection with a 

 bill 2.25 inches long and an adult female whose 

 bill measures 3.65 inches. It is evident that 

 the males in this race are hen-pecked! 



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