Atlantic Coast its winter range extends from British Guiana to the 

 mouth of the Amazon River. Between these two ranges it migrates 

 over all the intervening regions, where it can find suitable country, 

 but mainly along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. On the Pacific 

 Coast the spring flight progresses slowly northward, reaches Alaska 

 about the middle of May, and arrives on the breeding-grounds in 

 northern Mackenzie by the end of May. 



Very little seems to be known about the nesting-habits of the 

 Hudsonian curlew. Mr. MacFarlane found them breeding on the 

 treeless Arctic tundra near the mouth of the Anderson River, where 

 he took several sets of eggs late in June and early in July; the nests 

 were merely depressions in the ground lined with a few withered 

 leaves J. O. Stringer described a nest which he found on the lower 

 Mackenzie River as a pile of grass, moss, and weeds, on an island in 

 the river. Joseph Grinnell reported this species as breeding in the 

 Kowak Valley between June 14 and 20, 1899. The eggs vary in 

 color from a creamy drab to a brownish buff, and are more or less 

 heavily spotted with various shades of brown. The downy young 

 have apparently never been described, and nothing seems to be known 

 about the early plumage changes. Young birds in the fall can be dis- 

 tinguished from adults by their shorter bills and by the conspicuous 

 buff spots on the upper parts. 



The Hudsonian curlew is more of a littoral species than either 

 of the others, and seems to prefer to frequent and feed on the sea- 

 coast. At low tide it resorts to the recently uncovered flats and 

 beaches, where it can pick up marine insects, worms, and small crus- 

 taceans. 



Like most of the northern-breeding shore-birds, the Hudsonian 

 curlew moves off its breeding-grounds as soon as the young are able 

 to shift for themselves, and begins its summer wanderings, or starts 

 on its southward migration, early in July. The two main lines 

 of flight are down the east and west coasts of the continent, but a 

 more scattering flight passes through the central valleys and plains. 

 As with all the shore-birds, the early flights are composed almost en- 

 tirely of adult birds, and the flights of young birds follow, on an aver- 

 age, about a month later. 



63 



