114 BULLETIN 14 6;, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



were tame and unsuspicious, were easily decoyed, and were there- 

 fore slaughtered in enormous numbers on their feeding grounds; 

 ihey made a long migratory flight over the ocean from Nova Scotia 

 to South America, where many undoubtedly perished in stormy 

 weather. The long-billed curlew, once so common all over the interior 

 prairie regions, and even on the Atlantic coast, has gradually been 

 driven westward and northward, until it is now occupying a com- 

 paratively restricted range. The long-billed will probably be the 

 next of the curlews to disappear, perhaps within the near future. 

 But the Hudsonian curlew, on the other hand, has held its own, and in 

 some sections it has apparently increased. This increase, however, is 

 probably more apparent than real, due to comparison with other 

 species which are decreasing rapidly. The reasons for its success 

 in the struggle for existence are not hard to find. Its breeding 

 grounds are in the far north, where it is never disturbed; it has no 

 dangerous migration route; it does not ordinarily migrate in large 

 flocks, which are susceptible to vicissitudes of weather and great 

 slaughter at the hands of gunners ; but, above all, it is a shy, wary, 

 wily bird, quite capable of taking care of itself and well fitted to 

 survive. Like the crow, it is more than a match for its enemies. 



The Hudsonian curlew was evidently comparatively rare in Audu- 

 bon's time, for he apparently knew very little about it. Wilson seems 

 to have overlooked it entirely or to have confused it with the 

 Eskimo curlew, and Nuttall's remarks are not altogether clear on 

 the subject. George H. Mackay (18926) says: 



Speaking for Nautucket and Tuckernuck Islands, as far as I am aware, not 

 over 15 or 20 of these birds a year on an average have been shot there 

 during the past 17 years, and the local saying, that "it does not pay to go 

 after them," is true, they being too shy and too limited in number to make 

 it any object, either for gain or for pleasure. During these 17 years there 

 have never been more than 100 birds on an average living on the above 

 islands each year, and for the past few years I have noticed a falling off from 

 this number. 



I am quite sure that I have seen more Hudsonian curlews on Cape 

 Cod during the past 10 years that I saw during the previous 20. The 

 species certainly has not decreased, and I am inclined to think that 

 it has increased. The 1927 fall flight was unusually heavy. 



Spring. — From its winter range on the Pacific coast of Soutli 

 America this curlew migrates through Central America to Florida 

 and up the Atlantic coast. It reaches Florida during the latter half 

 of March, the Carolinas about the middle of April, and Massachusetts 

 about the middle of May. During a week spent with Arthur T. 

 Wayne on the South Carolina coast May 18 to 25, 1915, 1 saw the last 

 part of a heavy flight of Hudsonian curlews. Mr. Wayne told me 

 that the first birds come early in April, but the height of the migra- 



