ESQUIMAUX CURLEW. 
61 
joint by a membrane, and bordered along 1 the sides with 
a thick warty edge ; lining of the wing, dark rufous, 
approaching a chestnut, and thinly spotted with black. 
Male and female alike in plumage. The bill continues 
to grow in length until the second season, when the 
bird receives its perfect plumage. The stomach of this 
species is lined with an extremely thick skin, feeling 
to the touch like the rough hardened palm of a sailor 
or blacksmith. The intestines are very tender, mea- 
suring usually about three feet in length, and as thick 
as a swan’s quill. On the front, under the skin, there 
&re two thick callosities, which border the upper side 
of the eye, lying close to the skull. These are common, 
I believe, to most of the tringa and scolopax tribes, and 
are probably designed to protect the skull from injury 
while the bird is probing and searching in the sand and 
mud. 
216 . NUMENIUS HUDSONICUS, LATHAM. 
SCOLOPAX BOREALIS , WILSON. ESQUIMAUX CURLEW. 
WILSON, PLATE LVI. FIG. I. 
The Esquimaux curlew, or, as it is called by our 
gunners on the sea coast, the short-billed curlew, is 
peculiar to the new continent. Mr Pennant, indeed, 
conceives it to be a mere variety of the English 
whimbrel ( S.phceopus ); but among the great numbers 
of these birds which 1 have myself shot and examined, 
I have never yet met with one corresponding to the 
descriptions given of the whimbrel, the colours and 
markings being different, the bill much more bent, and 
nearly an inch and a half longer, and the manners in 
certain particulars very different : these reasons have 
determined its claim to that of an independent species. 
The short-billed curlew arrives in large flocks on the 
sea coast of New Jersey, early in May, from the south, 
frequent the salt marshes, muddy shores, and inlets, 
feeding on small worms and minute shell fish. They 
are most commonly seen on mud flats at low water, in 
