ESQUIMAUX CURLEW, 509 
of Brazil, Monte Video, and Paraguay, a circumstance which, 
however recently observed or extraordinary, is often repeated 
with the waders that are peculiar to America. D’Azara in- 
forms us that in Paraguay this species makes its passage in 
the month of September, and keeps in the open champaigns, 
either wet or dry, and never on the borders of rivers or marshes ; 
hence he calls it field curlew, Chorlito champetre. 
At Hudson’s Bay this curlew makes its appearance early 
in May, coming from the south, and going farther north, re- 
turning again to Albany Fort in August: it remains there 
till September, when it departs for the south. It is common 
in Maine and Nova Scotia during the months of October and 
November, and still more so at Newfoundland. We have re- 
ceived it from Maine, and from Prairie du Chien in Michigan, 
and have occasionally met with it also in the markets of New 
York and Philadelphia. In the middle States, however, it is 
by no means common, having escaped the industrious Wilson. 
This fact proves that our curlew is fond of extremely remote 
regions, without remaining for any length of time in the inter- 
vening countries between its winter and summer residences. 
They collect in small flocks of from ten to twenty ; and when 
starting on the wing, utter a cry resembling b7bz: this whistling 
note may be heard at a distance. The Esquimaux curlew 
lays four eggs, and keeps in flocks, composed of young and old 
together : they feed much on the berries of Himpetrum nigrum, 
which imparts to their flesh a delicate flavour. 
It has been the lot of all the species of curlews to be wantonly 
confounded with each other: only two were reckoned as 
Kuropean, and in them were merged as identical the three 
American. The longirostris was first definitively disunited 
from the arquata by Wilson. Vieillot unaccountably con- 
founded as one two very different species, giving it more than 
one name, however. The Hudsonicus, though correctly de- 
scribed by Latham, was referred by all writers, including 
Temminck, to the Huropean whimbrel, N. pheeopus. The 
present one he forebore, through extreme caution, to unite also 
