424 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



he saw two there, — the last that he ever saw, although he 

 resided in South Dakota until recently. The reports of all my 

 correspondents in Kansas indicate that the bird has been rare 

 there for about thirty years, and has disappeared. In Missouri, 

 where the Curlew formerly flew in countless thousands, we 

 find it rated in 1907 as a rare transient. A flock of one hundred 

 was reported in 1894; a flock of ten, in 1902; and none after- 

 wards. ^ Mr. Otto Widmann writes me that it was irregularly 

 common in the markets of St. Louis during the last two dec- 

 ades of the century. In Iowa the species disappeared grad- 

 ually, but rather suddenly at the last. The last record that 

 I have is that of a specimen taken at Burlington, April 5, 1893, 

 by Paul Bartsch. Cory (1902) says, in his Birds of Illinois 

 and Wisconsin, that the Eskimo Curlew may still occur during 

 the migrations, but is becoming very rare and apparently is 

 disappearing fast; also that it formerly was abundant, and as 

 late as 1895 was not uncommon in some localities. Dr. Walter 

 B. Barrows writes that there is no Michigan specimen extant 

 so far as he knows, and that the latest authentic record of the 

 taking of a specimen was at St. Clair flats in the spring of 

 1883. Prof. Lynds Jones says that the latest record of the 

 capture of the Eskimo Curlew in Ohio is September, 1878. 

 Prof. H. L. Ward says that this Curlew appears to have been 

 rare in Wisconsin for at least half of a century, and that he has 

 no recent record. Not one of my correspondents from Alberta, 

 Manitoba or western Canada ever has seen the bird alive, 

 as their experience in the country does not date back much 

 over ten years. All believe that it has disappeared. Mr. H. 

 P. Attwater saw flocks of small Curlews, which he believes 

 were of this species, near San Antonio, Tex., as late as the 

 year 1900. All these reports taken together seem to indicate 

 a gradual decrease of the species in the west, accelerated at the 

 last. 



The fishermen of Labrador noted the change about 1886 

 or 1887. There the decrease was more rapid. Dr. Henry B. 

 Bigelow, who visited Labrador in 1900, was satisfied that the 

 bird was nearing extinction. He saw only five birds while 



1 Widmann, Otto: A Preliminary Catalogue of the Birds of Missouri, 1907, p. 75. 



