324 



NUMENIUS. 



Diagnosis. 



Variations. 



Synonymy. 



Literature. 



Subspecific 

 characters. 



NUMENIUS ARQUATUS LINEATUS. 



ORIENTAL CURLEW. 



Numenius arquatus dorso postico uropygioque albis, vix brunneo striatis. 



The Eastern and Western forms completely intergrade. 



Numenius lineatus, Cuvier, Regne Anim. i. p. 521 (1829). 

 Numenius nasicus, Temminck, Man. d'Orn. iv. p. 393 (1840). 

 Numenius arquatula, Hodgson, Gray's Zool. Miscell. i. p. 86 (1844) . 

 Numenius cassini, Swinhoe, Ibis, 1867, p. 398. 



Plates. — Unfigured. 



Habits. — Legge, Birds of Ceylon, p. 906. 



Eggs. — Dybowski, Journ. Orn. 1873, p. 104. (Described as resembling those of the Common 

 Curlew.) 



The Eastern and Western forms of the Common Curlew differ as follows : — 



N. arquatus. 



Lower back white, streaked with brown. 

 Axillaries white, more or less spotted 



with brown. 

 Margins of scapulars and feathers on 



the upper back grey. 

 Length of bill 4^ to 7 inches. 



N. lineatus. 



Lower back unspotted white. 

 Axillaries unspotted white. 



Margins of scapulars and feathers on 



the upper back nearly white. 

 Length of bill 5^ to 8 inches. 



None of these characters appear to be constant, and intermediate forms are very 



common 



* This is no excuse whatever for confounding the two forms together, as Dresser and other ornithologists 

 have done. Although it may sometimes be difficult to determine to which form an individual may belong, 

 a series of examples from Western Europe are always perfectly distinct from a series from Eastern Asia. 

 Harting's theory (quoted by Oates in his ' Birds of British Burma,' ii. p. 412) that N. lineatus is the winter 

 plumage of N. arquatus is ingenious, but contradicted by facts. Out of 40 dated skins in the Hume Collection 

 from India and Burma, 6 only have the lower back streaked. Of these 6, 4 are adult females and 2 birds of 

 the year, but all 6 were shot between Nov. 2 and Dec. 20. The remaining 34 have the lower back white 

 without streaks, and consist of 17 adult females, 11 adult males, 3 males of the year, 2 females of the year, 

 and 1 unsexed bird of the year. These 34 birds are distributed over every month in the year except June 

 and July. 



