148 NOTES ON THE 
of;lower mandible reddish-yellow; legs greenish- brown; speci- 
mens vary in the shade of the lighter colors of the plumage, 
and in the length of the bill; iris brown. 
(Length, 18; wing, 9; tail, 4; bill, 8 to 4; tarsus, 2.25. 
Habitat, North and South America. 
NUMENIUS BOREALIS (Forsrur). (266.) 
ESKIMO CURLEW. 
I find specimens of this species of Curlew occasionally in the 
hands of the taxidermists, and have had them sent to me from 
the Red river once, but have never seen them alive. I was 
ready to doubt their specific identity almost, until I read 
Coues’ account of his observations of them in the Missouri 
region, in his Birds of the Northwest, pp. 510-512. 
If they are so abundant along the Missouri, it seems most 
probable that flocks may not altogether infrequently find their 
way along the Mississippi, and up the St. Peters or Minnesota 
rivers, and be regarded as rather small representatives of the 
‘Short Bills” by the hunters, who have more interest in them 
as game than specimens for the cabinets of birdologists. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Bill rather longer than the head, slender; wings long; tail 
short; legs moderate; entire upper parts brownish-black, spot- 
ted with dull yellowish rufous; quills brownish-black, uniform 
on both webs, without bars on either; under wing coverts and 
axillaries light-rufous, with transverse stripes of brownish- 
black; under parts dull-white; tinged with rufous, with longi- 
tudinal narrow stripes of brownish-black on the neck and 
breast, and transverse stripes of the same on the sides and 
under tail coverts; tail ashy-brown, with transverse bands of 
brownish-black; bill brownish-black; base of under mandible 
yellow; legs greenish-brown; iris dark-brown. 
Length, 13.50; wing, 8.25; tail, 3; bill, 2.25 to 2.50; tarsus, 1.75. 
Habitat, eastern North America. 
Family CHARADRIID. 
CHARADRIUS SQUATAROLA (L.). (270). 
BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER. 
I know of no other species of Plover which is a more reg- 
ular, and numerically uniform migrant in both spring and 
autumn in the locality from which I write. They are only 
moderately represented, arriving about the last of April in 
flocks of ten to twenty, but do not seem to remain but three or 
