Although this species has been recognized for over 140 years, surprisingly little has been learned or published about it. It was discovered by Latham in 1785 from Tahiti, the largest of the Society Islands, hence the specific name given by Gmelin in 1788, Scolopax tahitiensis. But the credit is due to Peale for discovering the most peculiar character of the species, the elongated shafts of some of the flank feathers which are lacking in barbs and from which we derive the name, “bristle-thighed.”

It was long supposed to be a bird of the South Pacific islands and the first birds captured in Alaska were regarded as accidental stragglers. During the last century there were only three published North American records, all for Alaska; the first specimen was taken by Bischoff on May 18, 1869, on the Kenai Peninsula, the second by Nelson on May 24, 1880, at St. Michael, and the third by Townsend on August 28, 1885, on the Kowak River. Since then it has been found to be a fairly common fall migrant in Alaska and it probably breeds somewhere in the interior of that territory.

Spring.—Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) gives the following account of the capture of his bird:

On May 24, 1880, while I was shooting black brant, a pair of these birds settled near by on a rising stretch of land covered with large tussocks. They uttered a loud whistling call note very much like that of hudsonicus, but something in their general appearance led me to stalk and secure one of the birds. To my gratification it was a bristle-thighed curlew, and I made great efforts to secure the mate, which had stopped a hundred yards or so beyond. As she raised on my approach I fired at long range and the bird fell mortally hurt on a distant hillside, where it was lost amid a host of large tussocks.

Bischoff’s bird was taken on May 18; and H. B. Conover (1926) collected one at Hooper Bay on May 22, 1924. These three dates, only six days apart, probably indicate the normal time of arrival of birds of this species in Alaska after their long flight over the Pacific Ocean from the Hawaiian Islands, the nearest of their winter resorts. This is a really wonderful flight and it is surprising that we have no evidence to indicate that they deviate from their direct course at all, as we have no records of any specimens from any point to the westward or to the southward of the Alaska Peninsula. The species is comparatively scarce on the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, from which we might infer that an overland flight is made from the vicinity of the Kenai Peninsula to the breeding grounds somewhere in the northern interior of Alaska.

Summer.—The breeding grounds and the nesting habits of the bristle-thighed curlew are entirely unknown, an interesting problem for some enterprising ornithologist to work out. Mr. Conover (1926) suggests that “the main breeding ground is probably above the timber line on some of the mountain ranges” of Alaska. Herbert W. Brandt says in his notes:

From the native information I was able to gather I believe that these birds may breed at the eastern end of the Askinuk Mountains, or in the Kusilvak Mountains and perhaps the mountains to the northward of Mountain Village on the Yukon River. Their early loitering appearance at Hooper Bay so shortly after nesting makes it entirely unlikely that they had traveled very far, but it seems rather strange that we did not encounter them in their spring migration and further it is apparently doubtful that they should enter the Bering Sea coast territory by following down either the Yukon or the Kuskoquim River valleys.

Dr. Charles H. Townsend shot a specimen of this curlew at Kotzebue Sound (Kobuk River) on August 25; it was a young bird which had evidently recently come from its breeding grounds. We saw none of this species about Nome in July; but after I left, Rollo H. Beck, a member of our expedition, collected quite a series of them in August. Two of his birds, now in my collection, were taken at Cape Nome on August 24, 1911. Mr. Conover (1926) writes:

By the end of July we had entered the Kashunuk Slough and traveled down it until we were about 20 miles from where it enters Hooper Bay. At this place was an Eskimo village where we stopped for a few days to have a goose drive; and it was here that we saw the bristle-thighed curlew in abundance. On July 31 a pair was seen and collected, and on August 3 one more was taken. August 4 was the big day, as several hundred of these birds were seen on the tundra feeding on blueberries. About a dozen were taken by our party, and I personally believe I saw over a hundred, while another member of the expedition, who was off in another direction, estimated that he saw three times as many. All the specimens taken were old birds.

The above facts would seem to indicate that the main breeding grounds are somewhere in the interior of extreme northern Alaska, probably on the barren grounds; that the spring migration is well inland; and that there is a heavy fall migration along the Bering Sea coast. The eggs and downy young are entirely unknown and there are not enough specimens available to work out the molts and plumages, which probably correspond to those of closely related species.

Food.—Probably the feeding habits of this curlew are not very different from those of the Hudsonian curlew, but the only food mentioned by observers consists of berries. Birds collected in Alaska were feeding on blueberries. They are said to feed on Canthium berries in the Hawaiian Islands; and birds shot on Midway Island by Dr. Paul Bartsch (1922) were “crammed full of Scaevola berries.”

Behavior.—Doctor Bartsch (1922) found this bird “quite abundant on both” Midway Islands in November, “where in company with the golden plover it frequents all parts of the island excepting those covered by brush. These birds were quite tame as well as curious and when flushed would frequently fly about us, emitting their peculiar cry.”

Dill and Bryan (1912) reported about 250 on Laysan Island in the spring; they say:

Just before sunset and early in the morning the bristle-thighed curlews would come up around our camp uttering their peculiar complaining notes. They roosted on the roofs of the old buildings at night, sometimes as many as 20 birds in one flock. We saw them feeding on different parts of the island but usually about the lagoon or along the beaches.

Donald R. Dickey photographed a bristle-thighed curlew on Laysan Island in the act of robbing a nest of the man-o-war bird, of which he tells me:

This was not a sporadic bit of deviltry engaged in by one perverted individual. Instead, it was characteristic of most, if not all, of the curlews present on Laysan at the time we were there. In other words, they indulged in organized banditry, working about the island in troupes accompanied by numbers of turnstones and an occasional golden plover which were partners in crime with the curlew. The turnstones jammed their bills straight into the lighter-shelled eggs, but the curlew, frequently at least, got access to the contents of the larger eggs by raising them in their bills and then dropping them back on the hard sand until they broke. They can pick up and run away with an egg up to the size of a man-o-war bird’s egg. In the case of the latter, the more dexterous birds seized the egg and held it endwise in the bill. It seems difficult for them to pick it up otherwise.

Dr. Alexander Wetmore has sent me the following notes on this subject:

That a bird of the shore-bird family should destroy eggs may seem almost unbelievable in view of the habits ordinary in this group, yet in work in the Hawaiian Bird Reservation in 1923 we found the bristle-thighed curlew, as well as the turnstone, making regular practice of eating the eggs of the birds nesting on these distant islands. The sooty and gray-backed terns were the greatest sufferers, as the curlew drove their long bills through the eggs with ease, or seized them in their long mandibles to carry them away and eat them at their leisure. On close observation we found that curlews attacked the eggs of all birds indiscriminately, even pulling an egg from beneath a frigate bird when the incubating bird raised on the nest for a moment, the theft being committed so adroitly that the egg seemingly was not missed. Mr. Donald Dickey in his motion pictures succeeded in filming a spirited scene in which a bristle-thighed curlew after a number of attempts accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of carrying away a frigate bird’s egg held firmly between its mandibles, while a group of apparently admiring turnstones, robbers themselves but incapable of such herculean acts of banditry, scurried about in the background. On another occasion a curlew flew up to a red-footed booby’s nest in a bush several feet from the ground in the temporary absence of the owner, impaled the egg, and dragged it away to be devoured. The booby was still brooding disconsolately in her empty nest two days later. On another day a curlew deliberately opened an old albatross egg found in the sand and ate eagerly from the putrid interior. As this egg had been lying unprotected from the sun for at least four months previous, its condition may be imagined, yet the bird returned avidly again and again to continue its horrid repast though I approached within 10 feet.

Voice.—Mr. Conover (1926) says:

The call and appearance of this species are entirely different from that of the Hudsonian curlew. The latter gives a very short whistling call, which is roughly as follows: Whe-whe-whe-whe. The former, on the other hand, has a call very similar to one of the black-bellied plover and sounds something like wheeeu-whu. In appearance the bristle-thigh is tawnier above and has a very reddish-brown unbarred rump, which is a very good field mark.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Alaska and islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Breeding range.—Unknown, but considered probable in northern or northwestern Alaska.

The bristle-thighed curlew does not seem to be abundant and consequently has been under observation at comparatively few points. Specimens have been observed or taken in summer in Alaska at Kotzebue Sound, Hooper Bay, Kobuk River, Lopp Lagoon, and Mint River. One also was taken on St. George Island, of the Pribilof group, on May 26, 1917.

Winter range.—During the winter they are found north to the Hawaiian Islands (Lisiansky, Laysan, French Frigate Shoal, Bird Island, and Hawaii); east to Hawaii, Palmyra Island, Fanning Island, Christmas Island, Marquesas Islands, Society Islands (Tahiti), and the Paumotu Archipelago (Vincennes Island); south to the Low or Paumotu Archipelago (Vincennes Island), Cook Islands (Palmerston Island), and probably New Caledonia; west to probably New Caledonia, Phoenix Islands (Canton and Phoenix Island), Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands (Jaluit Island), and the Hawaiian Islands (Lisiansky Island).

Migration.—Early dates of arrival for bristle-thighed curlews in Alaska are: Fort Kenai, May 18, 1869; Nome River, May 23, 1905; and Cape Mountain, May 28, 1922.

They have been detected in the Kotzebue Sound region as late as August 26, 1885.