THE CURLEW 185 



for deep in the soft earth with its long, bent beak. The 

 ideal ground is what is known in Northumberland as 

 " white land " — great expanses of moorland grass, with 

 many peat mosses scattered through it, and it is here that, 

 more than anywhere, the moors re-echo with many rever- 

 berating whistling voices. Besides worms, the food of 

 the Curlew at its summer quarters is varied. Insects and 

 their larval forms are eaten, and the berries of the blae- 

 berry {Vaccinium myrtillus) and the crowberry {Em- 

 petrum nigrum) are also consumed on occasion. Although 

 inhabiting only the middle zone, as it were, of the hills, 

 the Curlew never, so far as my experience goes, nests on 

 the moors actually on the coast-line, though they are 

 found quite a short distance — half a dozen miles or so — 

 inland. Like other waders a number of " trial " nesting 

 hollows are scraped out near the nest finally utilised, and it 

 is said that these hollows may be the work of the cock bird, 

 but so far as I know this point has never been investigated 

 in the case of the Curlew, though with the Green Plover 

 there is little doubt but that the cock amuses himself, and 

 fills his wife with admiration, by pivoting himself round from 

 one side to another during his display, forming the "scrapes" 

 which are so much in evidence at the nesting site. 



It is toward the end of May that the first of the baby 

 Curlews emerge from the shell. They are able to run 

 actively about almost from the moment of leaving the 

 egg, and it is doubtless with a view to obtaining as vigorous 

 chicks as possible that the Curlew, and indeed the majority 

 of wading birds, lay such large eggs. Indeed I incline 

 to the belief that, of all the waders, the chicks of the 

 Curlew are the most vigorous when hatched. 



On one occasion a Curlew had her nest in a moss at 

 the foot of the Camigorm mountains. Usually, on leav- 

 ing the nest she flew off in comparative silence, but on 

 the morning when I last visited the nesting site both 



