56 BRITAIN'S BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS. 



ORDER, LIMICOL^ (WADERS); 

 Family, CHARADRIID^ (Plovers, &c.). 



THE CURLEW 



(Numenius arquata). 

 Plate 19. 



The weird cry of the Curlew, audible at a great 

 distance, is one of the most familiar and typical sounds 

 of the open moorland. We may hear it as the waiy bird 

 catches sight of us a quarter of a mile away ; but, if 

 the bird be still oblivious of our presence in its favourite 

 solitudes, it may give utterance to the curious bubbling 

 note which is its spring-song. For song it is, as much 

 as that of any Warbler ; and although its merit as music 

 be small, it is certainly most appropriate to the surround- 

 ings amid which it is usually heard. Something wild, 

 something weird, something even mysterious is in it which 

 is in absolute harmony with the bleak but beautiful land 

 of purple heather and purple sky — the north-west High- 

 lands, say, at sundown after a stormy day. 



With the Curlew we begin our treatment of the 

 commoner members of the Order of ' Waders ' — solitary 

 birds of marsh and moorland in summer, gregarious birds 

 of sandy shore and tidal mud-flat from autumn till spring. 

 At the latter time, however, their numbers, both as regards 

 species and individuals, are greatly swelled by the addition 

 of members of the vaster hordes whose summer homes are 

 on the tundras of Arctic Europe. 



Of this Order the Curlew is in many ways a fair type ; 

 but its dimensions are greatly above the average for 



