

"Teweh," and where it inhabited marshy places, being sometimes found also on the 

 hills ; but there is nothing in Latham's description of his " Otaheite Curlew " incon- 

 sistent with its being specifically identical with that subsequently described by Peale 

 from Vincennes Island, one of the Paumotu archipelago ; while the latter, according to 

 Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub, was obtained also by Dr. Graffe on the Phoenix group, as 

 well as by Dr. Finsch himself on the Marshall and Kingsmill Islands, and Canon 

 Tristram's collection contains specimens from the Marquesas and from Fanning Island. 

 Moreover, the claims of no other species to the title of Numenius tahitiensis have been 

 established, for that described and figured by Cassin under the name in the Ornitho- 

 logical Appendix to Commodore Perry's Expedition to Japan (p. 228, plate) is 

 assuredly a very different bird, not at all agreeing with Latham's diagnosis. It is 

 probable that Schlegel in assigning the Numenius femoralis of Peale and Cassin to 

 N. phceopus had no specimens of the former before him, or he would hardly have 

 declared them to be merely " individus a plumes des jambes usees et depourvus de 

 barbules." Indeed there is no evidence to show that the present species, whatever be 

 the trivial name assigned to it, frequents the western part of the Pacific Ocean. Its 

 first appearance in North America was recorded by Mr. Bidgway in 1874, an example 

 having been taken by Mr. Bischoff at Fort Kenai on Kadiak Island in May 1869. 

 The authors of ' The Water-Birds of North America ' were, in 1884, under the 

 impression that the occurrence of this specimen at a distance of some 5000 miles from 

 its presumed habitat, "in a locality so remote and so unlike its natural haunt, can 

 only be regarded as being something purely accidental." They did not then know 

 that four years before Mr. Nelson had procured one of a pair of " Bristle-thighed 

 Curlews " (as the species has now been called) in Alaska. That gentleman writes 

 {op. cit. p. 121) : — " On May 24, 1880, while I was shooting Black Brant, a pair of 

 these birds settled near by on a rising stretch of land covered with large tussocks. 

 They uttered a loud whistling call-note very much like that of hudsonicus,h\xt some- 

 thing in their general appearance led me to stalk and secure one of the birds. To my 

 gratification it was a Bristle-thighed Curlew, and I made great efforts to secure the 

 mate, which had stopped a hundred yards or so beyond. As she raised on my approach 

 I fired at long range and the bird fell mortally hurt on a distant hill-side, where it was 

 lost amid a host of large tussocks. 



" The specimen secured was a male in fine plumage, and this is the second known 

 instance of the bird's occurrence on our shores, the former record resting on the capture 

 of a specimen at Kadiak Island by Bischoff, as announced by Mr. Eiclgway in the 

 ' American Naturalist ' for July 1874, under the name of Numenius femoralis, Peale. 

 Nothing is known of its habits in America, but the presence of the pair at the date 

 mentioned in the vicinity of St. Michael's would indicate that it nests, at least occasion- 

 ally, in Alaska Dr. Streets also found them very abundant on Palmyra Island, 



but only a few were seen on the other islands of the Fanning group." 



That Mr. Nelson's opinion will be proved correct there can scarcely be a doubt. 

 Numenius tahitiensis may be regarded as having its home in Alaska, and migrating 



