198 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



appearance in the marshes about harvest time, are 

 known to the gunners as the " great harvest curlews," 

 and suggests that they are " probably old females col- 

 lected together after the breeding season." These he 

 describes as "the most clamorous," and, when flying 

 singly, as answering most readily to the whistle. On 

 the other hand, both Folkard and my friend Mr. 

 Harting, are inclined to believe that the difference in 

 size is merely a matter of age, but having recently 

 ascertained beyond a doubt that the very marked dif- 

 ference in size in specimens of the bar-tailed godwit, 

 is purely sexual (the females being the largest), I 

 cannot help thinking that future observations wiU 

 prove that the same rule applies to the greater and 

 lesser curlews. 



Some thirty years ago, as Mr. Thomas Edwards in- 

 forms me, these "great harvest curlews" used regularly 

 to come up from the sea in August, to feed on the 

 '^Ollands," at Hempstead, near Holt, numbering at 

 times some thirty or forty in a " herd," when many of 

 them were shot ; but according to Folkard those killed 

 '^far inland, in ploughed fields and fresh water meadows, 

 are not so palatable" as the birds shot on the ooze or in 

 salt marshes; and Mr. Lubbock speaks of their excel- 

 lence when procured in the marshes, as compared with 

 their rank flavour after feeding on the sea-shore. Of 

 their estimation in former times as a delicacy for the 

 table we have ample testimony. In the L'Estrange 

 " Household Book " we find no less than seven entries 

 relating to this species ; in one instance a pair are 

 received as a present ; in another, two are received of 

 "gyste" (in lieu of rent.) Single curlews are pur- 

 chased at from four pence to five pence each, and on 

 one occasion three fetched, in Snettisham Market, two 

 shillings (the then price of a fat sheep), whilst at the same 

 time three woodcocks were procured for sixpence. The 



