56 Contributions from the Charleston Museum. 



not think that americanus has been exterminated by being shot, 

 but that it has changed its route of migration. Audubon, in 

 his Birds of America,^ states, upon the authority of Dr. Bachman, 

 that this curlew ' ' breeds on the islands on the coast of South 

 Carolina, and it places its nests so close together, that it is almost 

 impossible for a man to walk between them, without injuring the 

 eggs." 



Later writers have also asserted that this curlew breeds abun- 

 dantly on the South Atlantic coast, viz. — Dr. ElUottCoues,^ Daniel 

 Giraud Elliot,^ and Wickersham.'* 



I am of the opinion that the authors above mentioned accepted 

 Audubon's account of Dr. Bachman's statement, and did not 

 substantiate it by personal experience. It may appear hyper- 

 critical to question Dr. Bachman's statement that this species 

 bred on the coast islands, but the eggs were not described by either 

 Audubon or himself, and as far back as 1879 there were no eggs 

 of N. americanus in the Charleston Museum, while the eggs of 

 the "Stone Curlew" {Catoptrophorus semipabnatus) were well 

 represented and were classified as eggs of the Long-billed Curlew, 

 I have been unable to obtain any evidence, even from the ' ' old- 

 est inhabitants," that this species ever bred anywhere on the South 

 Carolina coast. The birds simply appeared in the autumn and 

 winter, and migrated to their breeding grounds in the northwest 

 in the spring. It will thus be seen that the Long-billed Curlew 

 must be excluded from the list of birds which breed in the South 

 Atlantic states. 



Dr. Bachman made many errors respecting the Limicolse and 

 I may mention a few. He stated in Audubon's Birds of America,^ 

 that the Knot {Tringa canutus) does not occur in South Carolina 

 in "full plumage;" and again ^ that the Dowitcher {Macrorham- 

 phus griseus) does not occur "in the spring in the vicinity of 

 Charleston." It is hardly necessary to mention that both the 

 Knot and the Dowitcher occur abundantly on the South Carolina 

 coast during the northward migration. Both of these species 

 attain the highest possible plumage before they start on their 

 long journey to the Arctic regions. In 1885, Mr. William Brew- 

 ster and the writer collected a very fine series of Tringa 

 canutus in the month of May on Sullivan's Island. Macrorham- 



' VI, 35-36. * Birds of the Northwest, 508; Key to North American Birds, 645. 



» North American Shore Birds, 153; A. O. U. Check List, 1895, 97. 

 * Auk, XIX, 1902, 353. » V, 256. « Ibid, VI, 12. 



