CHARADRIID.^. 



THE ESKIMO CURLEW. 



NuMENius EOREALis (J. R. Forster). 



This small American species is an occasional straggler to the 

 British Islands, the first instance on record being that of a bird 

 which was killed in Kincardineshire on September 6th 1855. On 

 September 29th 1879 another, shot in Aberdeenshire, was sent for 

 preservation to Mr. G. Sim, who also received an adult male from 

 Kincardineshire on September 21st 1880. An example, said to have 

 been forwarded from Sligo, was purchased in Dublin market on 

 October 21st 1870, and afterwards presented by the late Sir Victor 

 Brooke to the Museum of that city. iVccording to the late Dr. 

 Churchill Babington, two were obtained near Woodbridge in Suffolk 

 in November 1852, only one of which is now in existence; while he 

 adds, on Hele's authority, that a bird, which was not preserved, was 

 killed on the river Aide some few years before 1870. The latest 

 occurrence is that mentioned by Mr. Thomas Cornish, at Tresco in 

 the Scilly Islands, on September loth 1887. 



The Eskimo Curlew appears to be merely a visitor to Greenland, 

 but is widely distributed during the summer throughout the Arctic 

 regions of America from Hudson Bay to Alaska ; only a few, how^- 

 ever, remain to breed in the latter as far south as St. Michael's, 

 though northward this is the most abundant member of the genus. 

 It has wandered to the Tribilov Islands, but its representative 

 in North-eastern Siberia, and southward by China and Japan to the 



