356 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 



extremely abundant. They appear on the coast in the beginning of 

 autumn in vast flocks." 



Dr. J. H. Storer records in his manuscript journal that he saw the 

 first curlews on August 3, 1849, at Red Bay. On August 7th he 

 makes the following entry: "The Curlews began to come and in 

 immense flocks though very shy." 



Packard writes of the Curlew as follows: "On the 10th of August 

 [1860] the curlews appeared in great numbers. On that day we saw 

 a flock which may have been a mile long and nearly as broad; there 

 must have been in that flock four or five thousand! The sum total 

 of their notes sounded at times like the wind whistling through the 

 ropes of a thousand-ton vessel; at others the sound seemed like the 

 jingling of multitudes of sleigh-bells. The flock soon after appear- 

 ing would subdivide into squadrons and smaller assemblies scattering 

 over the island [Caribou Island] and feeding on the curlew-berries 

 now ripe." 



Coues, who was in Labrador in 1860, says that the Curlew "arrived 

 on the Labrador coast from its more northern breeding grounds in 

 immense numbers, flying very swiftly in flocks of great extent. These 

 immediately broke up into smaller companies, and proceeded at once 



in search of food. They remained but a very short time For two 



or three days before their final departure, we had noticed them all 

 moving directly southward, flying very high in the air in loose strag- 

 gling flocks, with a broad extended front." 



Stearns says the Eskimo Curlew were "formerly abundant; now 

 common in the interior in the fall." Turner, whose investigations 

 extended from June 15, 1882, to October 3, 1884, states that they 

 are "plentiful in the fall in the southern portions and as far north 

 as Davis Inlet ; they do not halt above this latter place while on their 

 way southward." 



The Bowdoin college expedition brought back the skins of two 

 males and one female from Holton Harbor taken on August 20, 1891. 



Bigelow in 1900 "heard of only about a dozen, which were seen 

 on the coast this fall." Of these he saw five. He states that he 

 "made careful inquiries among the settlers and obtained the following 

 rather interesting information: (1) the Curlew remained in their 

 former numbers in spite of the persecution to which they were sub- 

 jected until eight years ago [this would be 1892]. (2) They then 

 appeared no more." 



