Bristled Thighs at Home

0 curlew, cry no more in the air,

Or only to the water in the West . . .

--William Butler Yeats

In 1785, explorers found in Tahiti an odd, crow-sized bird with a flute-like cry. It was named the bristle-thighed curlew,* Numenius tahitiensis.

Ever since, ornithologists have wondered where the bristle-thighed curlew really lives and does its reproducing. It winters in the South Seas, as many New Yorkers winter in Florida, but it does not make its nest there. In 1869, a bristle-thighed curlew was spotted on the Alaska coast. But no nest was found. Apparently the curlews, having flown over 5,000 miles from Tahiti, penetrated still farther into Alaska to raise their families.

Some three weeks ago a well-heeled expedition, sponsored by the National Geographic Society, Cornell University and the Arctic Institute of North America and equipped with airplanes, motion picture cameras and other up-to-date gadgets, made a serious attack on the curlew's domestic privacy. Last week the exciting news was flashed to Dr. Gilbert Grosvenor, president of the National Geographic Society, from Dr. Arthur A. Allen, head of the expedition: "We have found the curlew's nest." It was at 62DEG north latitude, 164DEG west longitude, near Mountain Village on the lower Yukon, 160 miles south of Nome. Dr. Allen promised to bring back intimate motion picture studies of the bristle-thighed curlew at home.

*Not to be confused with the tufted dowager, red-eyed crosspatch, all-night thrasher, ruffled spouse, great stench, lesser stench, or double-breasted seersucker.

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