GREAT CURLEW. 251 



and in high health. In the course of a month or six weeks, 

 this bird became excessively tame, and would follow a person 

 across the menagerie for a bit of bread or a small fish, of 

 which he was remarkably fond. But he became almost 

 omnivorous ; fish, water-lizards, small frogs, insects of every 

 kind that were not too large to swallow, and (in defect of 

 other food) barley with the ducks was not rejected. This 

 very great favourite Avas at last killed by a rat, as it was 

 suspected, after a short life of two years in confinement; 

 but he had in that time fully satisfied our inquiries into his 

 natural habits." 



The Curlew breeds on all our elevated moors that are of 

 considerable extent, from Cornwall and Devonshire to the 

 northern extremity of Scotland ; but its nests are much 

 more numerous in the latter country than in England. On 

 the range of high grounds extending from the Mull of Gal- 

 loway to St. Abb's Head, Curlews are more abundant in 

 summer than in the Grampian Eange. It is not generally 

 in marshes that they nestle, but on dry moorland on the 

 sides of the hills. In Orkney and Shetland it occurs all the 

 year round. It would be difficult to determine whether our 

 summer birds advance southward in winter or not, leaving 

 their places to be occupied by immigrants from the north. 

 It has been conjectured that the birds which winter in the 

 south of England betake themselves in summer to the 

 Grampians, and that the breeders in England come over 

 from France. But it seems in no way improbable that the 

 broods, with their parents, merely shift from the hills to the 

 sea-shores and back again, according to the season, as is the 

 case with the Golden Plover and Lapwing. 



This species has not been found in America, but is dis- 

 persed over the greater part of Europe, and probably of Asia, 

 from many parts of which skins have been transmitted. 

 China, Japan, India and its islands, are mentioned as 

 inhabited by it ; and in Africa it extends even to the Cape 

 of Good Hope. 



Young. — The young are at first covered with down, 

 variegated with grey and dusky. 



