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...
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