304 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : ZOOLOGY 



"Yet this species was once exceedingly abundant. All writers from 

 Cartwright in 1770 to Coues in 1860 testify to their enormous numbers 

 in fall migration on the Labrador coast. Packard in 1860, speaks of a 

 flock a mile long and a mile wide. 



"The Eskimo curlew had an elliptical migration route; it nested on the 

 barren grounds of Canada, went southeast to Labrador and Nova Scotia, 

 then straight south across the Atlantic Ocean more than 2,000 miles at a 

 single flight to the Lesser Antilles and South America ; it wintered on 

 the pampas of Argentina and in spring went north by way of Texas and 

 the Mississippi Valley in a narrow belt on both sides of 97. 



"It retained its former abundance until the late seventies or early 

 eighties and then in about ten years the species became almost extinct. 

 Some of this diminution is probably due to the fact that during these 

 years the part of the Mississippi Valley through which it migrated was 

 largely brought under cultivation. But the most potent factor has been 

 the changing of its winter home where it spent one half the year on the 

 pampas of Argentina from sparsely settled grazing lands to enormous 

 wheat lands. During the years 1878-1892 Argentina increased its wheat 

 production fifty-fold and the pampas-loving Eskimo curlew suffered." 

 (The Migration and Recent History of the Eskimo Curlew: W. W. 

 Cooke. Science, N. S., XXX. No. 780, p. 856, December 10, 1909; 

 Report of Proceedings, Biological Society of Washington.) 



Genus LIMOSA Brisson. 



Type. 



Limosa, Briss. Orn. V. p. 261 (1760) ; Sharpe, Cat. Bds. 

 Brit. Mus. XXIV. p. 372 (1896) ; Sharpe, Hand-list 



Bds. I. p. 159 (1899) . . . . . L. lapponica. 



Actitis, pt. Illig. Prodr. p. 262 (1811) . . . . L. lapponica. 



Limicula, Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. III. p. 245 (1816). L. lapponica. 



Fedoa, Stephens, Gen. Zool. XII. pt. L. p. 70 (1814) . L. fedoa. 



Geographical Range. Almost cosmopolitan. 



LIMOSA HUDSONICA (Latham). 



The Red-breasted Godwit, Edwards, Nat. Hist. B. III. p. 138, pi. 138 



(1750). 



