The object of the
GENERAL APPENDIX
to the ANNUAL REPORT
of the SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
is to furnish brief accounts of
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY in particular
directions; reports of INVESTIGATIONS
made by collaborators
of the INSTITUTION . . .
The Eskimo Curlew and Its Disappearance
(Reprinted in this annual report after revision by the author, Myron H. Swenk, from The Proceedings of the Nebraska Ornithologists′ Union, Feb. 27, 1915.)
It is now the consensus of opinion of all informed ornithologists that the Eskimo curlew (Numenius borealis) is at the verge of extinction, and by many the belief is entertained that the few scattered birds which may still exist will never enable the species to recoup its numbers, but that it is even now practically a bird of the past. And, judging from all analogous cases, it must be confessed that this hopeless belief would seem to be justified, and the history of the Eskimo curlew, like that of the passenger pigeon, may simply be another of those ornithological tragedies enacted during the last half of the nineteenth century, when because of a wholly unreasonable and uncontrolled slaughter of our North American bird life several species passed from an abundance manifested by flocks of enormous size to a state of practical or complete annihilation. . . .
The Committee on Bird Protection desires to present herewith to the Fifty-fifth Stated Meeting of the American Ornithologists′ Union the results of its inquiries during 1939 into the current causes of depletion or maintenance of our bird life. . . . But the most dangerously situated are unquestionably the California condor, Eskimo curlew and ivory-billed woodpecker. They have been reduced to the point where numbers may be so low that individuals remain separated thus interfering critically with reproduction. . . .