EUEOPEAN" CURLEW 109 



exact locality, recorded by Macoun; St. Michael, June 19, 1874 

 (Turner); and upper Kuskokwim, July 23, 1898 (Hinckley). A 

 specimen also is reported as having been taken near Spanishtown, 

 Jamaica, in July, 1863. 



Other West Indian records for this species are considered indefi- 

 nite and probably refer to N. hudsonicus. 



Egg dates. — Utah : 41 records, April 1 to May 22 ; 21 records, 

 April 26 to May 9. Montana and Idaho : 24 records, April 20 to 

 July 4; 12 records. May 16 to 29. Saskatchewan: 11 records. May 

 3 to July 4 ; 6 records. May 23 to June 10. Washington and Oregon : 

 7 records, May 4 to 20. 



NUMENIUS ARQUATA ARQUATA (Linnaeus) 



EUROPEAN CURLEW 



Contrihuted iy Francis Charles Robert Jaurdain 



HABITS 



The European curlew is said to have occurred once on Long Island, 

 N. Y., in 1853, and the specimen is still extant in the New York 

 State Museum. It was originally recorded as a long-billed curlew, 

 N'umenius longii^ostris., but was identified by William Dutcher, who 

 recorded it in the Auk (1892). Its claim to a place in the American 

 list does not however rest on this ancient record, as E. Lehn Schioler 

 says that it has also occurred both on the west and east coasts of 

 Greenland. The first record was that of Johan Petersen, who ob- 

 tained a young male on August 23, 1913, at Angmagsalik on the east 

 coast. Another was shot at Nanortalik in Julianehaab district in 

 1915 on the west side. 



Sprhig. — Although great numbers of curlew are present through- 

 out the winter on the mud flats and low lying coasts and estuaries of 

 the British Isles, there is little doubt that the majority of our home- 

 bred birds migrate southward, and this is confirmed by the fact 

 that when the breeding birds appear on the moors, the shore haunting 

 birds are still present in their haunts and remain for several weeks 

 longer. The average date of the arrival of the breeding stock in the 

 north of England is about mid February; Chapman has recorded 

 their arrival from February 5 to March 11, and in years of heavy 

 snowfall, such as 1886, they were unable to reach their nesting ground 

 till March 19. In mid Derbyshire they generally arrive early in 

 March. 



CourtsM'p. — As William Farren (1910) remarks the watchfulness 

 of the curlew and the open nature of the country it frequents, make 



