NIMENirS. 115 



Species. 



a}. Culmen, 115 mm. or more: crown uniform in color with the back. 



6'. Lower back and rump wliite or witli streaks and spots of black; axillars 



pure white or with traces of dusky lines arquatus (p. 115) 



b-. Lower back and rump brown: axillars wiiite. broadly barred witli blackish. 



cyanopus (p. 116) 



0-. Culmen, 90 mm. or less; crown blackish with a pale or whitish central vertical 



band varlegatus (p. 117) 



91t. NUMENIUS ARQUATUS iLinnteus). 



COMMON CURLEW. 



Scolopax arquata LiNX.^sus, Syst. Nat. ed. 10 (1758), 1, 145. 



Numenius arquatus Sharpe, t'at. Birds Brit. Mus. (1896), 24, 341; Gates, 

 Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902), 2, .}(>. 



Numenius arquata Shakpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 157; Blanford, Fauna 

 Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4, 252, fig. 58 (head); McGregor and Wor- 

 cester, Hand-List (1906), 24. 



Masbate (Bourns d Worcester) ; Xegros {Steere Exp., Bourns d- Worcester) ; 

 Palawan {Whitehead, Bourns d- Worcester): Samar (Whitehend) . India and 

 Africa; Europe east to Lake Baikal, in winter to southern China and Malay 

 Peninsula. 



"Adult male in breeding plumage. — Above brown, with longitudinal 

 black centers to the feathers imparting a broadly striped appearance; 

 feathers of upper surface notched with ashy or rufous, giving to many 

 of the scapulars a somewhat barred appearance ; wing-coverts dark brown, 

 edged with whity brown, median and greater series also checkered with 

 whity brown, imparting a somewhat barred appearance to this part of 

 the wing; alula, primary-coverts, and primaries blackish, externally 

 glossed with bottle-green; primary-coverts slightly tipped with white, 

 shafts of outer primaries white, those of inner ones brown, primaries 

 notched or barred, on inner web only, with sandy buff or whitish, inner 

 primaries thus marked on both webs; secondaries distinctly barred with 

 brown and white, both webs being deeply notched with ashy wiiitish ; 

 innermost secondaries ashy brown with dusky brown cross-bars, the 

 center of the feathers being also dusky l)rown; lower back and rump 

 pure white with black longitudinal spots or streaks, a little more distinct 

 on the nmip; upper tail-coverts barred with black and white or with 

 sagittate subterminal spots, the longer ones tinged with sandy buff, 

 giving a streaked appearance ; neck more ashy, streaked with brown ; 

 over the eye a white streak, narrowly lined with black ; sides of face and 

 sides of neck, throat, and chest pale sandy l)uff streaked with blackish 

 l)rown, more narrowly on the sides of face; chin and iipjxT throat white: 

 breast, abdomen, sides of body, thiglis. and under tail-coverts white, 

 streaked with dark brown on bi'cast. and very narrowly on abdomen and 

 under tail-coverts; thighs unstreaked ; sides of hody witli distinct bars 

 or sagittate nu\rkings of dark brown; under wing-coverts and axillars 

 ])ure white, mottled with blackish centers to the feathers; axillars more 



