COMMON CURLEW. 197 
visible when, uttering their loud cry of “ cour-lieu,” 
“ cour-lieu’*—a sound, however wild and shrill, not 
less grateful to the ear on a bleak range of ooze or 
shingle, than on some scarcely less desolate moorland— 
they would betake themselves once more to their inland 
haunt. 
The great difference of size in individuals of this 
species must have attracted the notice of every natu- 
ralist and sportsman, but whether a matter of sex or 
of age, appears still a matter of doubt.t I am sorry 
that I cannot here say anything positive on this point, 
not having had the opportunity of dissecting a suffi- 
cient number of large and small specimens,t but 
supposing the largest to be really females, the males 
look more like whimbrels in comparison with their more 
than “better halves.”” Mr. Lubbock, in reference to 
this point, remarks that these large birds, from their 
* Mr. Harting, in his “ Birds of Middlesex,” gives two other 
notes from his observation of this species, ‘“ wha-up” and in the 
spring “whee-ou, whee-ou,” the latter I have frequently dis- 
tinguished. 
+ In Meyer’s “ British Birds,” (vol. 4, p. 196) the female is thus 
described “ Larger than the male, her colouring is more tinged with 
ash, and her legs brown. The young are smaller according to age, 
and their beaks also shorter and by far less curved.” The legs 
of the adult male he describes as “bluish-ash colour.” Degland 
also, in his “Ornithologie Europienne” (vol. 2. p. 166), gives a 
very similar statement. 
t A fine bird in my own collection (sex not known) has the 
bill five inches and five-eighths, total length from tip of beak 
to end of tail feathers twenty-five inches (when stuffed); tarsus 
three inches and five-eighths; and weighed two pounds three 
ounces and a-half. Another specimen, ascertained by dissection 
to be a female, has the bill five inches and four-eighths; total 
length from beak to tail twenty-four inches and three-eighths; 
tarsus three inches and four-eighths. The stomach contained only 
portions of the claws of minute crustacea. 
