GREAT CURLEW. 249 



where, in the higher and less frequented moors, they deposit 

 their eggs and rear their young. 



It is now the beginning of May. The sunny banks are 

 covered with primroses, the golden catkins of the willow 

 fringe the brooks, while the spikes of the cotton-grass orna- 

 ment the moss-clad moor. Let us ascend the long glen, and 

 wandering on the heathy slopes, listen to the clear but 

 melancholy whistle of the Plover, the bleating of the Snipe, 

 and the loud scream of the Curlew. Here is a bog, inter- 

 spersed with tufts of heath, among which is a profusion of 

 Myrica Gale. Some Lapwings are coming up, gliding and 

 flapping along ; a black-breasted Plover has stationed him- 

 self on the top of that mound of green moss, and a Ring 

 Ouzel has just sprung from the furze on the brae. See ! 

 what is that ? a Hare among our feet ? No, a Curlew, flut- 

 tering along the ground, wounded, unable to escape ; run ! 

 she has been sitting. Here is the nest, in a hollow, under 

 shelter of two tufts of heath and a stunted willow. It is 

 composed of dry grass, apparently eriophora, eleocharis pa- 

 lustris, scirpus ccespitosa, some twigs of heath, and perhaps 

 portions of other plants, not very neatly disposed. It is very 

 shallow, and internally about a foot in diameter. The eggs 

 are four, pyriform, excessively large, three inches long, an 

 inch and ten-twelfths across, light olive or dull yellowish- 

 brown, or pale greenish-grey, blotched and spotted with 

 umber-brown, the markings crowded in the larger end. 

 They vary considerably in size and form, some being only 

 two inches and three quarters in length. Those of the nest 

 before us are of the largest size, very darkly coloured, and so 

 little contrasting with the surrounding objects that, unless 

 the bird had sprung up among our feet, we should scarcely 

 have observed them. 



Far up on the hill-side you hear the loud cry of the 

 Curlew, which is presently responded to from the opposite 

 slope ; in another place a bird commences a series of modu- 

 lated cries, and springing up, performs a curved flight, flap- 

 ping its wings and screaming as it proceeds. Presently the 

 whole glen is vocal, but not with sweet sounds, like those of 

 " the Mavis and Merle." But it is in vain to pursue the 



