332 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



[NO. 27. 



Numenius borealis (Forst.). Eskimo Curlew. 



A melancholy interest attaches to this species, which evidently has 

 become practically exterminated within the past few years, although 

 formerly enormously abundant and fairl}^ common up to about 1890. 

 It was first recorded from this region by Richardson, who saj^s: 

 " On the 13th of June, 1822 [1821]. I discovered one of these curlews 

 hatching on three eggs on the shore of Point Lake." ^ He met with 

 the birds also at Fort Franklin, Great Bear Lake, late in May, 1849, 

 when they were feeding on large ants.^ Kennicott mentions taking 

 one at Fort Resolution May 26, 1860.^ MacFarlane found the species 

 breeding abundantly on the Barren Grounds to the eastward of Fort 

 Anderson, where some thirty sets of eggs were taken.^ In notes sent 

 to the Smithsonian he states that the species arrived at Fort Ander- 

 son on May 27, 1865. The bird catalogue of the National Museum 

 records skins from Fort Resolution, Big Island, Fort Simpson, Ander- 

 son River, and Rendezvous Lake. Sharpe records a specimen from 

 Fort Good Hope.« 



Squatarola squatarola (Linn.). Black-bellied Plover. 



This handsome plover migrates through the Athabaska and Mac- 

 kenzie region and associates to some extent with the golden plover, 

 but is much less common than that species. It breeds on the Barren 

 Grounds. 



In the spring of 1901 we noted the black-bellied plover only on 

 the Quatre Fourches marsh, near Fort Chipewyan, where a small 

 flock was seen May 23. 



Fn 1903 Ave observed a flock of about 25 near Sturgeon River May 

 12. The species w^as not again seen until September 5, when I took 

 a female on the shore of Great Bear Lake east of Leith Point. It 

 was in company with a small flock of golden plovers and had been 

 feeding on Emjyetrum. berries. 



In the museum at Fort Simpson is a specimen obtained at that 

 place some 3^ears ago. 



J. C. Ross recorded this bird as breeding near Somerset House 

 (Fury Point) , and as taken near Felix Harbor.'^ B. R. Ross recorded 

 it from the Mackenzie River region, where he regarded it as rare.^^ 

 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway state that MacFarlane found it breed- 

 ing on islands in Franklin Bay, where he took eggs on July 4 and 5, 



« Fauna Boreali-Americana, II, p. 378, 1831. 



^ Arctic Searching Expedition, II, p. 108, 1851. 



c Trans. Chicago Acad. Sci., I, p. 172, 1869. 



^ Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XIY, p. 429, 1891. 



^ Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XXIY, p. 370, 1896. 



^ Appendix to Ross's Second Voyage, p. xxx, 1835. 



fi'Nat. Hist. Rev., II (second ser.), p. 285, 1862. 



