56 SLENDER-BILLED CURLEW. 



M."Gerbe says he saw in the museum at Caen, and in 

 the private collection of Dr. Lesauvage, of that town, 

 several specimens which had been shot on the sea-shores 

 of Calvador. 



Naumann includes it among the birds of Germany; 

 and M. Dubois, in his "Oiseaux de la Belgique," re- 

 cords its capture near Louvain, in 1834, which specimen 

 is in the collection of M. Isidore Bovie; and also a 

 second specimen near Ostend, in 1836. M. De Selys- 

 Longchamps, in a long and valuable paper in 

 " Naumannia" for 1856, entitled "Remarks on some of 

 the Birds of Europe," states on the authority of H. 

 H. Bovie and Robarts, that it once nested in the 

 neighbourhood of St. Froud, in Belgium. The same 

 author also alludes, in his " Faune Beige," to its having 

 been observed in Picardy by M. Baillon. 



In many parts of Africa the Slender-billed Curlew 

 is not uncommon, — as Algeria, Egypt, and Nubia. 

 Mr. Salvin ('^bis," vol. i., p. 359,) met with flocks of 

 this bird on several occasions, and he shot one on a 

 plain near E Djau. Mr. Tristram ("Ibis," vol. ii., p. 

 80,) states he saw one shot by a French officer at 

 Oumache, near Biskra. The same gentleman also thinks 

 he saw it in Southern Palestine. 



N. tenuirostris has been often confounded with the 

 Whimbrel, and I believe its occurrence has been 

 passed over from its general resemblance to that bird. 

 iV. tejiuirostris is, however, altogether a smaller bird 

 than N. phceopus. The beak is nearly three quarters 

 of an inch, and the wing, to the wrist, half an inch 

 shorter. The under wing coverts in the Whimbrel are 

 spotted, in the Slender-bill pure white; while the spots 

 on the abdomen are distinct in the latter — not streaked, 

 as in the former. 



