BIRDS OF THE PEAK 129 



than the visible bird, mad with anxiety and cryinp aloud 

 when the nest was looked for. liut the curlew has one 

 very fine aspect when, at your approach, he rises up 

 before you at a distance of three or four hundred yards 

 and comes straij,'ht at you, llyinj^ rapidly, appearing 

 almost silver-white in the brilliant sunshine, the size so 

 exaggerated by the light and motion as to produce the 

 illusion of a big bird, the only one left alive by the 

 Philistines and destroyers. But it is a beautiful illusion 

 which lasts only a few moments. In all this Peak dis- 

 trict you will not find a larger bird than a curlew or 

 mallard or crow, that very big bird which my clergyman 

 told me about. Not a buzzard, not a harrier, not a 

 raven, or any other species which when soaring would 

 seem an appropriate object and part of the scenery in 

 these high wild places. 



What a contrast between all these delicate voices of 

 the moorland, from the faint tinkle of the rising and 

 falling pipit to the curlew's trill, and others I have 

 omitted, the golden plover and water-ouzel, the aerial 

 bleat of the snipe, the wail of the peewit and thin sharp 

 pipe of the sandpiper or "water-squealer" as the natives 

 call it — between all these and the red grouse. He has 

 no music in him, but great power. On these high moors 

 his habit is to sit or stand on a stone wall to sun himself 

 and keep an eye on his wives and rivals and the world 

 generally. He stands, head erect, motionless, statuesque, 

 the harsh-looking heap of dark gritstone forming an 

 appropriate pedestal. For he is like a figure cut in some 

 hard dark red stone himself — red gritstone, or ironstone, 



