THE HUDSONIAN CURLEW 
By A. C. BENT 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 62 
A striking case of the survival of the fittest is seen when we compare 
the relative abundance of the three common species of North American 
curlews today with their status fifty years ago. Whereas, at that time, 
the Hudsonian Curlew was the rarest of the three, it is now by far the 
commonest. The vast flocks of Eskimo Curlews that formerly frequented 
the Labrador coast every summer or visited the New England coast at 
frequent intervals, have all disappeared. They were tame and unsuspi- 
cious, were easily decoyed, and were therefore slaugh- 
tered in enormous numbers on their feeding-grounds; Declining 
11 1 11- Curlews 
and when autumn came they made a long migratory 
flight over the ocean from Nova Scotia to South America, in the course 
of which many undoubtedly perished in stormy weather. 
The Long-billed Curlew, once so common all over the interior prairie 
regions, and even on the Atlantic Coast, has gradually been driven west- 
ward and northward, until it is now occupying a comparatively restricted 
range. It is so large and conspicuous a species that it has been much 
sought after by gunners, and, as it is not particularly shy, it has suc- 
cumbed to persecution ; moreover the cultivation and settlement of the 
prairies have driven it from, or destroyed, its favorite breeding-grounds. 
The Long-billed will probably be the next of the curlews to disappear, 
perhaps within the near future. 
The reasons for the Hudsonian Curlew’s success in the struggle for 
existence are not hard to find. Its breeding-grounds are in the far North, 
where it is never disturbed ; it has no dangerous un- 
successful 
Qualities 
gration-route ; it does not, ordinarily, migrate in very 
large flocks, which are susceptible to vicissitudes of 
weather and great slaughter at the hands of gunners ; but, above all, it 
is a shy, wary, wily bird, quite capable of taking care of itself and well- 
fitted to survive. Like the Crow, it is more than a match for its enemies. 
There is no bird that has been more universally persecuted than the 
Crow, every man’s hand is against it, yet it is as abundant as ever. 
The Hudsonian Curlew, Jack Curlew, Short-billed Curlew, or Jack, 
as it is variously called, has often been mistaken by gunners for each of 
the other species, and some confusion seems to have existed, in regard 
to it, among the early writers on ornithology. Wilson does not seem to 
have recognized this species at all, or to have confused it with the Eskimo 
Curlew ; and Nuttall’s remarks are not altogether clear on the subject. 
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