Vol. VI. Part 2 February 27, 1015 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Nebraska Ornithologists* Union 



THE ESKIMO CURLEW AND ITS DISAPPEARANCE 



BY MYRON H. SWEXK 



It is now the consensus of opinion of all informed ornitholo- 

 gists that the Eskimo Curlew fNumenius borealis) is at the verge 

 of extinction, and by many the belief is entertained that the few, 

 scattered birds which may still exist will never enable the species 

 to recoup its numbers, but that it is even now practically a bird 

 of the past. And, judging from all analogous cases, it must be 

 confessed that this hopeless belief would seem to be justified, and 

 the history of the Eskimo Curlew, like that of the Passenger 

 Pigeon, may simply be another of those ornithological tragedies 

 enacted during the last half of the nineteetith century, when, be- 

 cause of a wholly unreasonable and uncontrolled slaughter of our 

 North American bird life, several species passed from an abun- 

 dance manifested by flocks of enormous size to a state of practical 

 or complete annihilation. In this deadly work the people of Ne- 

 braska, as well as those of our neighboring states, to our lasting 

 discredit played a conspicuous and all too effective part each 

 spring, while in the fall the equally profligate gunners of New 

 England and the Atlantic states poured leaden death into south- 

 bound flocks of these unfortunate birds whenever an opportunity 

 presented itself. 



Nothing was known concerning this interesting bird until after 

 the middle of the eighteenth century. It was originally described 

 by Forster^ in 1772, as Scolopax borealis, from a specimen taken 



'Forster, J. R. Phil. Trans. Rojal Soc. London, Ixii, pp. 411 and 431, 1772. 



