200 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



of Hudson bay. Preble records seeing it daily, sometimes in con- 

 siderable numbers between York Factory and Fort Churchill and 

 northward but says nothing of finding nests or young birds. Mr. 

 Low says curlew are not uncommon and breed on Southampton 

 island but as no specimens were collected it may have been either 

 this bird or the next which he saw. 



266. Eskimo Curlew. 



Numenius borealis (Forst.) Lath. 1790. 



By far the most common species of curlew on the coast of New- 

 foundland, but a periodical visitor. (Reeks.) The Eskimo curlew 

 are hardly a remnant of their former numbers on the Labrador 

 coast. I heard of only about a dozen, which were seen on the coast 

 this fall (1902). Of these I saw five. (Bigelow.) Casual in Green- 

 land, and not uncommon in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, 

 but a rare autumn visitor in New Brunswick. A rare migrant in 

 Quebec. Accidental in Ontario; Mr. Mcllwraith says he is aware 

 of only three specimens being taken in Ontario in twenty years. 

 In addition to these Mr. J. H. Fleming cites the capture of one bird 

 in 1873 3.t Wolfe island, near Kingston, Ont. This specimen is in 

 the British museum. 



Mr. L. M. Turner observed several large flocks of this species flying 

 over the mouth of the Koaksoak river, Ungava bay ; plentiful in the 

 fall in southern Labrador, but the flocks do not stop. Mr Spread- 

 borough saw none when he made a traverse of Labrador in July, 

 1896. It was found in large numbers in August, 1884, by Dr. R. 

 Bell, at Fort Churchill, on Hudson bay. 



Macfarlane found it breeding in great numbers on the Barren 

 Grounds; It is an irregular visitor at Point Barrow, and not a 

 common one, but Murdoch says it is well known to the natives. 

 Mr. Nelson reports this species to be the commonest of the curlews 

 in northern Alaska, more especially along the coasts of Bering sea 

 and Kotzebue sound. Elliott collected a single specimen on St. 

 Paul island, Bering sea. Figgins took a specimen, a male, on the 

 barren grounds of Kenai mountains at 2,200 feet altitude. It was 

 fairly common at Homer and very shy. 



