ESQUIMO WHIMBREL 207 



breed near the extremity, or beyond the extremity, 

 of South America* It is very curious, to say the 

 least of it, that the Arctic and Antarctic regions of 

 America should possess the same species, and that, 

 at opposite seasons of the year, it should winter in 

 the same district, so far from the breeding-place of 

 one set of individuals, and so near to that of the 

 other ! Captain Abbott observed the Hudsonian 

 Godwit in the Falkland Islands in flocks in the 

 month of May (see Ibis, 1861, p* 156)* These could 

 not have been Alaska birds, but were no doubt 

 southern breeders on their way north, for that they 

 could winter so far south seems incredible. 



ESQUIMO WHIMBREL 



Numenius borealis 



Above dark brown, each feather edged or spotted with pale buff or 

 dirty white, becoming most strongly marked on the rump and upper 

 tail-coverts ; wings uniform dusky brownish, narrowly edged with 

 white ; tail buffy brown, transversely barred with dusky ; beneath, 

 throat white ; rest of under surface pale buff, with more or less 

 V-shaped dusky markings on the breast, flanks, and under tail-coverts ; 

 axillaries and under wing-coverts pale chestnut, transversely barred 

 with dusky ; length n.6, tail 8.14 inches. Female similar. 



THE Esquimo Whimbrel, which, as Mr. Seebohm 

 tells us, may be distinguished from all its congeners 

 by having scarcely any traces of bars on its prim- 

 aries and by the back of the tarsus being covered 

 with hexagonal reticulations, migrates from the 

 tundras of North America, where it breeds, to the 

 southern extremity of South America* 



