134 BULLETIN 146; UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the birds were turning in their flight that one could scarcely throw a brick or 

 missile into it without striking a bird. 



In hunting these curlew the field glass was used by the hunters to follow 

 their flights. The fields where they were prone to gather were patroled many 

 times during the day and carefully scanned with the glass to discover the 

 flocks on the ground. When the birds came in they would be up quite high, 

 perhaps from 200 or 300 yards to a quarter of a mile, and in preparing to alight 

 they would turn and wheel, towering in the air while they whistled softly, 

 would hover a while, and then all drop and come down, flying along over the 

 ground for a short distance before alighting. The birds would always alight 

 all at once and very close together, and if the day were warm they would sit 

 down very close together on the ground, forming bunches, when they could be 

 readily discovered with the field glass and approached close enough to get 

 a shot. 



There was no difficulty in getting quite close to the sitting birds, perhaps 

 within 25 or 35 yards, and when at about this distance the hunters would wait 

 for them to arise on their feet, which was the signal for the first volley of .shots. 

 The startled birds would rise and circle about the field a few times, affording 

 ample opportunity for further murderous discharge of the guns, and some- 

 times would realight on the same field, when the attack would be repeated. 

 Mr. Wheeler has killed as many as 37 birds with a pump gun at one rise. They 

 weighed just about 1 pound each when they were fat. Sometimes the bunch 

 would be seen with the glass alighting in a field 2 or 3 miles away, when the 

 hunters would at once drive to that field with a horse and buggy as rapidly as 

 they could, relocate the birds, get out, and resume the fusillade and slaughter. 

 On rainy days the birds would fly restlessly from one field to another, moving 

 about in this way most of the day and seeming unusually plentiful because of 

 being so much in the air. 



Wiiifer. — There is little known about the winter habits of the 

 Eskimo curlew except that it formerly associated with the golden 

 plover, the upland plover, and the buff-breasted sandpiper on the 

 pampas of Argentina and Patagonia, where it is now but a memory 

 of the past. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — North and South America, accidental in eastern Asia 

 and Great Britain. 



The Eskimo curlew is now nearly or quite extinct. Although 

 formerly abundant, its occurrence in both North and South America 

 has been so frequently confused with Nwnenius hudsonicus, that it 

 is extremely difficult to establish its migration range. Like the 

 golden plover, however, this species followed an elliptical route, 

 usually passing south in the fall off the coast of the United States, 

 the point of departure from the mainland being the coast of Labra- 

 dor, Nova Scotia, or (more rarely) Long Island, New York. In 

 spring the return trip was made up the Mississippi Valley and the 

 prairie States at which season it was practically unknown on the 

 Atlantic coast. 



