v^Tn- 



ESKIMO CURLEW. 



NUMENIUS BOREALIS [J. R. Forster). 



Scolopax borcalis, /. R. Forster, Phil. Trans. Ixii. pp. 411, 



431 (1772). 

 Numenius borealis, Naum. viii. p. 50G; Yarr. ed. 4, iii. p. 512 ; 



Dresser, viii. p. 221. 



Mr. H. Saundei's, in his ' Manual of British Birds,' 

 records some seven or eight occurrences of this small 

 American Curlew in the British Islands ; the specimen 

 from which my Plate was taken being the latest in date 

 of the birds there recorded ; it was killed on the island 

 of Tresco, Scilly, on September 10, 18S7, and most 

 kindly lent to me by Mr. Dorrien Smith for this work. 



Nuttall says of this species that " in the course of its 

 vast migrations it occasionally visits almost every part 

 of the American continent " ; but its breeding-haunts 

 are, it would seem, confined to the Arctic regions. It 

 visits Labrador in great numbers on the autumnal 

 migration ; but the main route of the annual southward 

 journey of this Curlew is said to lie along the valley of 

 the Mississippi and to the southward of New Jersey. Its 



