THE CURLEW 187 



At the first sighting of danger the mother bird— perhaps 

 both parents together— rise excitedly, restlessly, from 

 the moor, and fly round the object of their alarm, uttering 

 the while anxious cries, resembling somewhat the words 

 " whew-e-whro," and quite unlike their ordinary call 

 or alarm notes. Sometimes, indeed, one of the birds will 

 swoop down at your head, giving utterance to a wild 

 shriek of distress. As the chicks crouch low on the ground 

 at the first warning cry of their parents they are extremely 

 hard to discover. One may search unsuccessfully for 

 hours, and it really is more satisfactory to lie quietly and 

 watch from some point of vantage until the young show 

 themselves again under the impression that the danger 

 has passed. The Curlew chicks are conducted by their 

 parents on quite long excursions, and may not infre- 

 quently be seen in green grass fields, where their discovery 

 is a much easier matter than out in the rough moorland. 



Not after their young are strong on the wing do 

 the Curlew remain on the hills. As early as the third 

 week in June I have seen them migrating south, flying 

 high before a northerly wind, and calling repeatedly as 

 they passed, and by the Twelfth scarce a Curlew can be 

 seen on the uplands anywhere. Even before that date 

 our eastern coasts are already thronged with Curlew 

 people from northerly lands, for although our own birds 

 may, a few of them, winter on our coasts, the majority 

 make their way south till the shores of Spain and Portugal 

 are reached. 



Doubtless because of its grotesquely long bill and its 

 wild, sometimes almost unearthly cry, the Curlew has 

 from earliest times been looked at askance. To the High- 

 landers the " Whaup " is often considered as being in 

 league with the Evil One— in fact " Auld Whaup-neb " 

 is a name ^for the devil — and its wail may portend 

 disaster to the crofter who hears it. 



