RAVENS, CURLEWS, AND EIDER-DUCKS 141 



though their mournful cries answer each other like 

 two sad complaining souls, yet they keep apart, and, 

 on settling, do not run to each other. From the drear 

 slope of a hill a wail goes up, and from another hill, 

 or the cheerless hollow between, the sad sound is 

 answered. Or one will fly wailing whilst the other 

 wails and sits, or the two will follow each other along 

 the ground, but without coming very near. Thus, 

 in a kind of sad, solitary communion, they wail and 

 lament, and so exactly is each the counterpart of 

 the other, one might think that the prophet Jeremiah 

 had been turned into a bird, which had subsequently 

 flown asunder. 



In flight the wings are for the most part constantly 

 quivered, with a quick and somewhat tremulous 

 motion, but sometimes the bird will glide with them 

 outstretched, and not moving, just over the ground, 

 before it alights, or make a steep-down descent hold- 

 ing them set in this manner, and so settle. There is 

 also a trick or mannerism of flight which is graceful, 

 and may be of a nuptial character. Rising to a 

 certain height on quivering wings, they sink down, 

 holding them extended and motionless. After but 

 a short descent, they rise again in the same quivering 

 way, and so continue for a greater or lesser space of 

 time. 



The note which they utter is, first, a melancholy 

 "too-ee, too-ee, too-ee," then a much louder and 

 sharper " wi-wi, wi-wi, wi-wi " (i as in " with "), and 

 there are various other ones, one of which — if memory 

 did not trick me — is just, or very, like a note which is 

 but seldom heard of the great plover, "Tu-whi, whi, 

 whi, whi, whi." This bird is itself a curlew, so that 



