110 BULLETIN" 14 6^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



observation of the courtship on the ground extremely difficult. False 

 nests or " scrapes " are almost invariably to be found in the neighbor- 

 hood of the nest, and O. R. Owen writes that in some parts of 

 Radnorshire, where the curlew breeds commonly, it is not unusual to 

 find two or three dozen " scrapes " in an afternoon. The curlews 

 arrive on the moors in flocks, which keep together for a week or so, 

 but soon resolve themselves into pairs. At this times, the moors 

 reecho with their songs. Mr. Farren describes it as follows : 



The performance, with its accompanying trilling song, resembles somewhat 

 that of the redshank. It rises from the ground and with rapid wing beats 

 ascends to a good height. Often when near the summit of its flight it cliecks 

 suddenly, almost throwing itself over backwards. Recovering, it hangs poised 

 kestrel-like in the air, and while so hovering, and also during a short temporary 

 drop on motionless wings, it pours forth the trilling or jodelling song. It rises 

 again on quivering wings and again sinks as before. This may continue for 

 some time or it may be varied by the bird circling round on extended wings, 

 when one is again reminded of the flight of a hawk. More often than not the 

 bird will stop before a circle is completed and hover again over a fresh spot. 

 So it continues, circling, rising, and falling, and pouring forth a joyful ripple 

 of song. The song consists of two — or three — rising notes, rapidly repeated, 

 high pitched, but liquid and flutelike. I would express the curlew's song as 

 gur-lech, gur-lecli, gur-lech, gur-lech, pronounced rather distinctly at first and 

 not too quickly, but quickening after the first two or three repetitions. Toward 

 the end the syllables must be almost run together, losing all of the first except 

 the " g " and at no time sounding the " ch " too hard but rather as in the 

 Scottish " loch." 



Seton Gordon (1915) writes as follows: 



The singer, flying along the moor a few yards above the surface of the ground, 

 checks his flight and rises almost perpendicularly with wings rapidly beating the 

 air. On reaching a certain elevation he soars^ — glides rather — earthward in a 

 slanting direction, and it is now that his song is uttered. Commencing usually 

 in a couple of long-drawn whistles, uttered in a very low key, the song quickens, 

 the notes are sharper and clearer, and have at the middle of the performance a 

 curious, distinctive " break," diflicult to put into words. It is at this point that 

 the song is carried far across the moorland country, but almost at once the 

 key is lowered, the calls become more subdued, more drawn out, until they end, 

 as they commenced, in low, melancholy cries. Sometimes one sees a curlew 

 making his way across a moor and constantly fluttering up into the air. But 

 one imagines that there is something at fault, for time after time he utters only 

 the first note of his song and then almost at once mounts again into the heavens. 

 Can it be that he does not succeed in reaching the correct altitude from which 

 all self-respecting curlew commence their appeals to their adored ones? But 

 perhaps the songster is not producing that bottom note satisfactorily and thus 

 is doing his best to perfect it. It is, I believe, only the male birds that practice 

 these distinctive risings and dips in the air, but I can assert from personal 

 experience the hen also makes use of the trilling, tuneful notes which most 

 ornithologists associate only with the cock bird during the season of nesting. 



Nesting. — The nesting sites are somewhat varied. Often the eggs 

 are laid in a slight hollow, lined with grass or sometimes sprigs of 



