ESQUIMAUX CURLEW. 621 



Durris, Kincardineshire, a few miles from Aberdeen, by 

 W. R. Cussack Smith, Esq., at the time occupying Durris 

 House. The bird was sent to be preserved by Mr. 

 Mitchell, Aberdeen, and was examined a few days after 

 by J. Longmuir, Esq., Jun., who ascertained it to be the 

 Esquimaux Curlew (Numenius borealis). Unluckily it was 

 not measured when in the flesh, and the sex was not 

 observed ; but it appeared to be a female, in almost com- 

 plete winter livery. 



Some questions sent to its fortunate possessor were most 

 courteously answered in a letter, from which the following 

 passages were extracted : " I shot the bird on the 6th of 

 September. I was standing on a cairn of stones, which is 

 at the top of a hill on the muir, belonging to Durris, 

 called Car-monearn, one of the Grampian range, some 

 twelve hundred feet above sea-level, and was looking at 

 that view, when my gamekeeper told me that there was a 

 Golden Plover close to me, on the south-east side of the 

 cairn. I looked, and saw a bird walking slowly about, 

 just as a Plover would do ; and as soon as I could get my 

 gun, I went up to the bird and shot it. Its flight was 

 very similar to that of a Sea-gull. The bird was quite 

 alone. I did not hear it utter any note ; and I think if it 

 had done so, I must have heard it. It seemed very much 

 disinclined to rise from the ground, and allowed me to get 

 within twenty yards of it." 



From Sir John Richardson, in the Fauna Boreali- 

 Americana, called also the Northern Zoology, we learn 

 that this Curlew frequents the barren lands within the 

 Arctic circle in summer, where it feeds on grubs, fresh- 

 water insects, and the fruit of Empetrum mgrum, the crow- 

 berry. Its eggs, three or four in number, have a pyriform 

 shape, and a siskin green colour, clouded with a few large 

 irregular spots of bright umber-brown. The Copper 



