104 BRITISH BIRDS. 



NUMENIUS BOREALIS. 



ESQUIMAUX CURLEW. 



(Plate 33.) 



Scolopax borealis, Forst. rhil. Trans. Ixii. pp.411, 431 (1772) ; et auctorum plmi- 



morum {Latham), {Swainson *§- Richardson), {Audubon), (Baird), {Coues), &c. 

 Numenius borealis (Forst.), Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 712 (1790). 

 Numenius brevirostris, Licht. Verz. Douhl. p. 75 (1823). 

 Numenius microrbynclius, Philippi Sf Landb. Wiegm, Arch. 1866, p. 129. 



Six occurrences in the British Islands of the Esquimaux Curlew have 

 been recorded. The first example, apparently a bird in first plumage, was 

 killed on the 6tli of September, 1855, on one of the Grampians, a few miles 

 from Aberdeen, by Mr. W. R. Cusack Smith (Longmuir, ' Naturalist,' 

 1855, p. 265) ; a second was obtained some years previous to 1870 on 

 the river Aide near Aldeburgh in Suffolk, but was not preserved; and a 

 third was killed near Woodbridge in the same county (Hele, ' Notes about 

 Aldeburgh,' p. 177) . The fourth example was shot in Sligo, and purchased 

 in the Dublin market on the 21st of October, 1870 (Blake-Knox, ' Zoolo- 

 gist,' 1870, p. 2408) ; it was exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society in London by Sir Victor Brooke, into whose collection it passed 

 (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1871, p. 299). The fifth bird (a male) was shot by 

 Mr. Ramsay, of Staines, in Aberdeenshire, on the 29th of September 1878, 

 and was exhibited by Mr. Harvie-Brown at a meeting of the Natural- 

 History Society of Glasgow (Harting, 'Zoologist,' 1879, p. 135). The 

 sixth, an adult male, was shot, in the forest of Birse, Kincardineshire, on 

 the 21st of September 1880 (Harvie-Brown, ' Zoologist,' 1880, p. 485). 



The Esquimaux Curlew has never occurred on the continent of Eurojie, 

 being a strictly Nearctic species, breeding on the American tundras above 

 the limit of forest-growth, and occasionally crossing to the Siberian side 

 of Behring's Straits. It passes through the L^nited States and Central 

 America on migration, but appears to confine itself to the Atlantic side of 

 the Rocky Mountains. It winters throughout South America below the 

 Equator. It has occurred twice in Greenland, and passes the Bermudas 

 regularly on migration in considerable numbers, whence the few indi- 

 viduals that have been obtained in our country have probably been driven 

 out of their course by storms. The Esquimaux Curlew is represented in 

 East Siberia, China, and Japan by Numenius mirmtus, which may always 

 be recognized by its smaller size — the wing measuring 7f inches or less, 



