



Shore-bird S boot ing 449 



The whimbrel is the European representative of 

 the Hudsonian curlew, which it closely resembles. 

 It may be immediately distinguished by the pure 

 white rump. Several specimens from Greenland 

 constitute its claim to a place on the North 

 American list. 



The whimbrel is an abundant summer resident 

 of the Faroe Islands and Iceland, breeding in 

 marshes of the most desolate country it can find. 

 Like so many other of the large waders, naturally 

 pugnacious in the breeding season, swooping with 

 a trilling cry at any strange or moving object, the 

 few still raising their young in regions that man 

 frequents have learned his disposition, and fly or 

 run silently from their eggs while he is yet far 

 away, and keep well out of gunshot. 



BRISTLE-THIGHED CURLEW 



(Numenius tahitiensis) 



Adult male and female Crown, sooty brown, with central longi- 

 tudinal stripe of buff, a dark streak from bill through eye over 

 the auricular region, a superciliary stripe of buff above, rest of 

 head and neck, buff, streaked with brown ; back and scapulars, 

 brown, with spots of buff; wing-coverts, paler ; upper tail-coverts 

 and tail, buff, barred with dark brown ; throat and under parts, 

 buff; neck and breast, streaked, the flanks barred with dark 

 brown; the shafts of feathers of tibial and femoral regions, 

 lengthened like bristles; bill, black; base of mandible, flesh 

 color ; feet and legs, bluish ; iris, brown. 



Measurements Length, 17 inches ; wing, 10.50 inches ; tarsus, 2.30 

 inches; culmen, 3.50 inches. 



Habitat Breeding range unknown; recorded from the Kowak 

 River, St. Michael, and Kadiak, Alaska, in summer ; from Lower 

 2G 



