ESKIMO CURLEW. 



SC0L0PACID.,E.] 



NUMENIUS BOREALIS (J. R. Forster). 



Explanation of Plate. 



Figure 1. Lower Anderson River, British N. America, 1865 ; R. MacFarlane coll. 



No. 14096 U.S. National Museum Collection. 

 „ 2. Lower Anderson River, British N. America, 1866 ; R. MacFarlane coll. 



No. 15740 U.S. National Museum Collection. 

 „ 3. Rendezvous Lake, British N. America, 1865 ; R, MacFarlane coll. No. 14098 



U.S. National Museum Collection. 

 „ 4. Barren Grounds, near Fort Anderson, British N. America, June 22, 1863, 



female shot just from nest ; R. MacFarlane coll. No. 9431 U.S. National 



Museum Collection. 



This American species is a rare accidental visitor to the British Islands. 



Mr. Howard Saunders writes * : — " The Eskimo Curlew appears to be merely a 



visitor to Greenland, but is widely distributed during the summer throughout 



the Arctic regions of America from Hudson Bay to Alaska; only a few, however, 



remain to breed in the latter as far south as St. Michael's, though northward this 



is the most abundant member of the genus. It has wandered to the Pribilov 



Islands, but its representative in Northern Siberia — and southward to Australia 



in winter — is N. minutus of Gould, a slightly smaller species, which has paler 



and less barred under parts, and moreover has the back of the tarsus scuteUated 



like the front — as in Totanus ; in the American bird the hind tarsus is reticulated, 



as in other members of the genus Numenius. Although the Eskimo Curlevs' has 



been obtained in the Galapagos Islands, and also on the coast of Chili, it does 



not appear to pass down the Pacific sea-board of North America ; its line of 



flight being rather to the eastward of the Rocky Mountains. Immense numbers 



migrate through the Mississippi valley, but none winter there, nor is a long 



stay made in any part of the United States to the north of Texas ; some visit 



the Bermudas, while others pass southward as far as Patagonia and the Falkland 



Islands." 



* ' Manual of British Birds,' pp. 615, 616. 



