THE COMMON CURLEW. 



661 



scutellated, a little more so, though not entirely in nestling. Hind 

 toe well developed. Wings long, first developed primary longest. 

 Tail rounded, less than half length of wing. 9 species with several 

 subspecies, northern latitudes, on migration all over world 



Key to species of genus Numenius. 



/Inner webs of primaries uniform brown . . N. borealis, p. 



\ Inner webs of primaries barred ... 2 



r Crown streaked 3 



^ Crown deep brown with wide light stripe along 



middle N. phceopu3, p. 



/Larger, wing over 270, sides striped ... N. arquata, p. 



\ Smaller, wing under 270, sides spotted 



668 



665 

 661 



N. tenuirostris, p. 669 



NUMENIUS ARQUATA 



424. Numenius arquata arquata (IV 



THE COMMON CURLEW. 

 Europe . 



Scolopax Arquata Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. x, i, p. 145 (175 



Restricted typical locality : Sweden). 



Numenius arquata (Linnaeus), Yarrell, in, p. 499 ; Saunders, p. 627. 



Description. — Adult male and female. Winter. — Crown heavily 

 streaked black-brown, feathers margined light pink-buff ; nape 

 same but streaks narrower ; feathers of mantle and scapulars with 

 black-brown centres, margined drab, sometimes shading to pink- 

 buff, some scapulars more or less notched black-brown ; lower 

 scapulars similar but ground-colour white ; back and rump white 

 with black-brown streaks or irregular markings, sides usually 

 white, amount of streaking varies individually ; upper tail-coverts 



Wm 



Bill of the Common Curlew (Numenius a. arquata), adult male. 



white suffused pink-buff, irregularly barred brown-black and sepia, 

 some with sagittate subterminal patches of same ; patch above 

 and below eye white ; chin white, sometimes minutely streaked 

 sepia ; lores, cheeks, sides of neck, throat and breast pink-buff, 

 with sepia streaks, broadest on breast ; sides of belly, flanks and 

 under tail-coverts white (sometimes suffused pink-buff), irregularly 

 barred sepia and usually with subterminal sagittate markings of 

 same, some tail-coverts narrowly streaked sepia ; belly white with 

 long oval sepia spots or streaks, sometimes with sagittate sepia 



