[409.] NUMENIUS BOREALIS (Forst.).
(ESQUIMO WHIMBREL.)
Numenius borealis, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 146; Durnford, Ibis, 1878, p. 404 (Centr. Patagonia); Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 316 (Entrerios); Seebohm, Plovers, p. 333; Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. Water-B. N. A. i. p. 318.
Description.—Above dark brown, each feather edged or spotted with pale buff or dirty white, becoming most strongly marked on the rump and upper tail-coverts; wings uniform dusky brownish, narrowly edged with white; tail buffy brown, transversely barred with dusky: beneath, throat white; rest of under surface pale buff, with more or less V-shaped dusky markings on the breast, flanks, and under tail-coverts; axillaries and under wing-coverts pale chestnut, transversely barred with dusky: whole length 11·6 inches, wing 8·14, tail 3·3. Female similar.
Hab. Arctic America, extending south to Patagonia in winter.
The Esquimo Whimbrel, which, as Mr. Seebohm tells us, may be distinguished from all its congeners by having scarcely any traces of bars on its primaries and by the back of the tarsus being covered with hexagonal reticulations, migrates from the tundras of North America, where it breeds, to the southern extremity of South America.
Mr. Barrows noted its first arrival at Concepcion in Entrerios on September 9th, 1880, “in large flocks.” After the middle of October none were seen there.
The same excellent observer saw it almost daily on the pampas between Azul and Bahia Blanca, “in company with the Golden Plover and Bartram’s Sandpiper, until late in February.”
From the 8th to the 10th of October, 1877, Durnford saw large flocks of this Whimbrel in the Chupat Valley flying south, and obtained two specimens. Capt. Packe and Capt. Abbott both procured examples in the Falkland Islands.