Part 28

Late dates of fall departure are: Alaska, Craig, September 24, and St. Lazaria Island, September 30; Mackenzie, Great Bear Lake, September 30; British Columbia, Courtenay, October 5; Washington, Clallam Bay, October 9, and Point Chehalis, October 19; Ontario, Brighton, September 1; Quebec, Montreal, September 9; Nova Scotia, Wolfville, September 13; Maine, Northeast Harbor, September 5; Portland, September 9, and Dover, October 12; Massachusetts, Monomoy Island, September 28, Harvard, October 2, and Dennis, October 27; Rhode Island, Sakonnet Point, September 25, Rock Island, September 28, and Newport, October 2; Connecticut, New Haven, September 19, and North Haven, September 20; New York, Montauk Light Station, September 28, and Orient Point, September 30; New Jersey, Sandy Hook, September 13; and Virginia, Wallops Island, September 23, and Hog Island, November 10.

Casual records.--The Hudsonian curlew is of hardly more than accidental occurrence in the interior but has been noted on a few occasions. In addition to notes given under migration, mention may be made of the following records: Colorado, a specimen at Colorado Springs on September 23, 1900; New Mexico, a specimen at Fort Thorn in the spring of 1854; Texas, Brownsville, several records in spring between March 31 and May 24; Nebraska, Lincoln, October 8, 1898; Wisconsin, Milwaukee, September 9, 1903, and Cedar Grove, September 23, 1922; Iowa, Crystal Lake, Hancock County, May 25, 1895; Michigan, St. Clair Flats, May 25, 1902, Saginaw City, fall of 1896, and Forestville, April 23, 1906; and Indiana, Calumet Heights, August 3, 1902. Reports exist for other interior States but usually without satisfactory evidence.

Both Macoun and Hagerup list it as occurring in Newfoundland, but without any presentation of the evidence. In Porto Rico, Gundlach reported collecting it at Punta Arenas, and also refers to a specimen in a collection at San Juan, Stahl secured two others which were preserved in his collection, F. A. Potts obtained one May 21, 1921, near Las Mareas, and observed others from July 31 to September 24, 1921, near Central Aguirre. According to Reinhardt (1861), it has been taken on four occasions in Greenland (Godthaab, Julianehaab, Fiskenaesset, and Jacobshavn). A specimen was recorded in 1854 by Kjärbölling from Iceland and one was taken near Seville, Spain, May 3, 1872.

Egg dates.--Alaska and Mackenzie: 11 records, May 31 to July 10; 6 records, June 14 to July 1.

NUMENIUS BOREALIS (J. R. Forster)

ESKIMO CURLEW

HABITS

The story of the Eskimo curlew is just one more pitiful tale of the slaughter of the innocents. It is a sad fact that the countless swarms of this fine bird and the passenger pigeon, which once swept across our land on migrations, are gone forever, sacrificed to the insatiable greed of man. “The Eskimo Curlew and its Disappearance,” by Prof. Myron H. Swenk (1915), tells the story; it is well worth reading, but space will permit only a few quotations from it. Edward H. Forbush (1912 and 1925) also gives a very good account of the tragedy. In some of the following paragraphs the reader will find many references to its former abundance and the extent of the slaughter which exterminated it. So we shall consider here only the period of its rapid decline and some of the causes which produced it.

Professor Swenk (1915) says of its disappearance in the West:

In Texas the Eskimo curlew came in immense flocks on the prairies from 1856 to 1875, after which year the large flocks disappeared. Small flocks were seen in 1886 and 1890. The last records of the species for Texas were 1902 and 1905, one and three individuals, respectively. The species were first definitely recorded for Kansas from Russell County in 1874. In that State these curlews were abundant as late as 1878, but in 1879 their numbers were much reduced and the birds decreased rapidly. There were still a few in the Kansas markets in the early nineties. The last record is for 1902. Eastwardly in the interior the birds were always uncommon and disappeared early. The last Michigan record is in 1883. The last Ohio record is in 1878. The last Wisconsin records are April 27, 1899, and September 10, 1912, the latter specimen a male taken at Fox Lake, Dodge County, Wis. The last Indiana record is, with some doubt, April 19, 1890.

The last records of collected birds for Nebraska were made in the spring of 1911 and of 1915. On March 22, 1911, while Mr. Fred Geiger was shooting ducks near Waco, York County, two of these birds came flying by within gun range, and both were shot by him. The birds were identified by an old-time hunter, and were then brought to Lincoln, and mounted by Mr. August Eiche, in whose collection they are at present. Although no Eskimo curlews were noted in 1914, a single bird was killed about 10 miles due south of Norfolk, Nebr., on the morning of April 17, 1915. The bird was alone when taken. It came into the possession of Mr. Hoagland, who had it mounted by Allabaugh, a taxidermist of Omaha, in whose shop I saw it in May.

But this was not the last word from Nebraska, for 11 years later Professor Swenk (1926) published the following encouraging note of a sight record:

In further substantiation of the undoubtable fact that the Eskimo curlew is not yet extinct, I am now able to cite a positive instance of its occurrence in Nebraska during the present spring. On the morning of April 8, 1926, Mr. A. M. Brooking, of Hastings, an ornithologist and taxidermist who is very familiar with this species through having spent much effort in assembling several specimens of it for his extensive collection, while driving from the village of Inland to Hastings along what is known as the “north road,” saw a flock of eight birds alight in a newly plowed field about 4 miles east of Hastings. He drove his car up close to the birds, and when within 40 yards of them was able to his astonishment to positively identify them as unquestionably Eskimo curlews. Mr. Brooking knows the species so well, and saw the birds so clearly, that in my opinion this sight record can be accepted without hesitation.

On the Labrador coast Eskimo curlews diminished rapidly in numbers between 1870 and 1880. Hon. F. C. Berteau, a government official in Labrador, in some notes published by W. J. Carroll (1910) says:

Up to 1889 dough-birds or Eskimo curlew were very numerous in Labrador from late in August to the end of September. They frequented the southern part of the coast only, never appearing north of Indian Harbor at the northern entrance to Hamilton Inlet. During the first 4 or 5 of the 10 years during which I was collector of customs on Labrador, they were very numerous, indeed, flying from the hills to the shore and vice versa in flocks numbering from fifty to two or three hundred. During the last years of my collectorship they gradually diminished in numbers, until in 1890 or thereabouts they entirely disappeared, and save for a few seen on one or two occasions have never returned to the coast.

The Hudson’s Bay Co. people at Cartwright annually put up large numbers of hermetically sealed tins for the use of the company’s officials in London and Montreal. I have seen as many as 2,000 birds hung up in their store as the result of one day’s shooting by some 25 or 30 guns. A fairly accurate idea of the plentifulness of these birds will be obtained from an account of my own experience. During the season I used to leave the cruiser at 6 a. m. and return at 9 for breakfast. I do not remember ever getting less than 30 to 40 brace during the two hours or so that I was shooting.

Dr. Henry B. Bigelow (1902), who visited the northeast coast of Labrador in 1900, heard of only about a dozen which were seen on the coast that fall, of which he saw five. Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1913) reported that seven were “shot and one other seen on the beach at West Bay, north of Cartwright, in August and September, 1912. The skins of five were saved, and sent to Cambridge, where they were seen and identified by Mr. William Brewster.”

Excessive shooting of this curlew on its migrations and in its winter home in South America was doubtless one of the chief causes of its destruction. Ernest Gibson (1920) saw “some 20 or 30 * * * in the vicinity of Linconia,” near Buenos Aires, on February 13, 1899; and a small flock was reported in the same locality on April 8, 1901. He evidently has seen none since then. Mr. Forbush (1925) has recently given us the latest news from Argentina in a letter from Dr. Roberto Dabbene, in which he writes that five or six were seen in the Province of Buenos Aires on February 7, 1924; one of these was captured and another solitary individual was taken at the same place on January 11, 1925; both of these specimens are in the Museo National de Historia Natural, at Buenos Aires. These and the other recent records may indicate that there are a few Eskimo curlews still living; but the species is reduced to such a low ebb that it is doomed to speedy extinction, if not already gone.

One need not look far to find the cause which led to its destruction. On its breeding grounds in the far north it was undisturbed by man. And I can not believe that it was overtaken by any great catastrophe at sea which could annihilate it; it was strong of wing and could escape from or avoid severe storms; it could, like all shore birds, swim if necessary; and its migration period was so extended that no one storm could wipe it out. Several other species of shore birds make similar, long ocean flights without apparent disaster. There is no evidence of disease or failure of food supply. No, there was only one cause, slaughter by human beings, slaughter in Labrador and New England in summer and fall, slaughter in South America in winter and slaughter, worst of all, from Texas to Canada in the spring. The gentle birds ran the gauntlet all along the line and no one lifted a finger to protect them until it was too late. They were so gentle, so confiding, so full of sympathy for their fallen companions, that in closely packed ranks they fell, easy victims of the carnage.

Spring.--It was as a migrant only that we knew the Eskimo curlew. As to how it reached the United States from southern South America we know very little; but it probably followed the same route taken by its companion the golden plover. It arrived in Texas early in March and migrated northward through the prairie regions, mainly west of the Mississippi River, through central Canada and the Mackenzie region to the barren grounds on the Arctic coast. It was rare in spring east of this narrow belt, and practically unknown west of it. The flight through the United States was mainly accomplished during April and through Canada in May, arriving on its breeding grounds before the end of May.

Professor Swenk (1915) writes:

As to the abundance of these birds in Nebraska during the early years of its statehood the observations of Prof. Lawrence Bruner, who distinctly remembers the flights which occurred in the vicinity of Omaha during the years 1866–1868, when he was a boy 10 or 12 years old, are indicative. The birds would arrive about the time the later willows began to bloom (latter April), being present in force for a week or 10 days only, for by the time all of the wild plum blossoms had fallen (middle May) the birds were gone. Usually the heaviest flights occurred coincident with the beginning of corn-planting time, and enormous flocks of these birds would settle on the newly plowed fields and on the dry burnt-off prairies, where they searched industriously for insects. These flocks reminded the settlers of the flights of passenger pigeons and the curlews were given the name of “prairie pigeons.” They contained thousands of individuals and would often form dense masses of birds extending for a quarter to a half mile in length and a hundred yards or more in width. When the flock would alight the birds would cover 40 or 50 acres of ground.

Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) called this “the most abundant curlew in northern Alaska, especially along the coasts of Bering Sea and Kotzebue Sound.” At Saint Michael a number were seen passing north on May 12, 1878. He says that they were “always more numerous than hudsonicus, and sometimes flocks of 150 or more” were seen. But Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1900) looked for it in vain about Kotzebue Sound.

Nesting.--For all that we know about the nesting habits of the Eskimo curlew, we are indebted to Roderick MacFarlane, who found this species breeding abundantly on the barren grounds east of Fort Anderson and up to the Arctic coast. He collected some 30 sets of eggs there between 1862 and 1866. He says in his notes that “this curlew never, in this quarter at least, breeds in wooded tracts, the barren grounds proper being the real habitat of the species during the season of nidification.” It is “very difficult to find the nests” as the birds “get off long before our approach, while the eggs nearly resemble the grass in color.” Some birds were seen to leave the nests. The nests are described as mere hollows in the ground, “lined with a few decayed leaves” and sometimes having “a thin sprinkling of hay.” The birds “generally ascend in the air in a straight line after getting off the nest.”

Eggs.--The normal set was evidently four eggs, but MacFarlane sent home several sets of three. The eggs are rather pointed ovate in shape and have very little gloss. Many eggs closely resemble certain types of Franklin gull’s eggs. The ground colors vary from browns to olives, the latter predominating. The olive colors run from “buffy olive” or “citrine drab” to “olive buff,” and the brown colors from “light brownish olive” to “buckthorn brown.” Some eggs are boldly marked with heavy blotches, which are sometimes confluent about the larger end; more often they are irregularly spotted and blotched; and some eggs are sparingly marked. The markings are in dark browns, “bister,” “bone brown,” “buffy brown,” and blackish brown, with underlying spots and blotches of various shades of “brownish drab.” The measurements of 36 eggs average 51.3 by 35.5 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =54.5= by 36, 52 by =39.5=, =47.5= by 36, and 51 by =33= millimeters.

Plumages.--There are not enough specimens of Eskimo curlews, collected during the proper seasons, to work out the molts and plumages satisfactorily. There are no specimens of downy young or very young juvenals available. Young birds in juvenal plumage, as seen on migration, are much like adults, but the feathers of the mantle, scapulars, tertials, and wing coverts are more broadly edged, but less conspicuously notched, with “pinkish buff”; and the under parts are less extensively covered with the dusky markings.

The postnuptial molt of adults is mainly accomplished after they have left us in the fall, beginning in September; the wings are probably molted after the birds have reached their winter home. There is a prenuptial molt of the body plumage, visible during the spring migration, the new feathers, being more pinkish buff, especially on the under parts.

Food.--Professor Swenk (1915) says of its food habits in the west: