502 SCOLOPACID^. 



Scottish Dictionary is said to be a name for a goblin, sup- 

 posed to go about under the eaves of houses after nightfall, 

 having a long beak. Sir Walter Scott refers to this supposed 

 connection of a long beak with a suspicious character in 

 his ' Black Dwarf (chap, ii.), in a dialogue between Hobbie 

 Elliot and Earnscliff, in the evening on Mucklestane Moor. 

 The former says, " What need I care for the Mucklestane 

 Moor ony mair than ye do yoursel, Earnscliff? To be sure, 

 they say there's a sort o' worricows and lang-nebbit things 

 about the land, but what need I care for them ? " And this 

 enables us to understand the fag-end of a Highlander's 

 prayer, to be saved harmless " from wdtches, warlocks,* and 

 aw lang-nebbed things." Saxby says that the Shetlanders 

 regard with horror the very idea of using so uncanny a bird 

 as food ; in fact, a visitor who did so was afterwards alluded 

 to, almost in a whisper, as " the man that ate the Whaup." 

 Although the Curlew nests in abundance in the Orkney 

 and Shetland Islands, yet in the Faeroes Major Feilden thinks 

 that it is only an autumnal and winter visitant, giving place 

 as a breeding species to the Whimbrel (Zool. 1872, p. 3248). 

 It is common in Scandinavia in summer, and from thence 

 probably come the immense numbers which Mr. Gatke 

 describes as passing over Heligoland. For instance, on the 

 night of the 19th-20th November, 1878, he says, " The 

 whole atmosphere one mass of these birds, the noise of their 

 call-notes quite unearthly and bewildering ; countless smaller 

 waders mixed with them." It breeds in Russia, Poland, and 

 sparingly in Northern Germany ; in Holland, especially on 

 the peaty moors of Brabant, and perhaps in Belgium and 

 Picardy ; also on some of the wastes of Britanny. In Central 

 and Southern Europe, and in North Africa as far as Egypt, 

 it is well known on migration and in winter ; and, stretching 

 westward as far as the Azores, the range of the Curlew can 

 be traced along the western side of Africa to Damara Land. 

 On the east coast as far as Natal, in Madagascar, and across 

 Asia from the Ural to Japan, occur forms which have been 



* A warlock, or wizzard — a man who is supposed to be in compact with the 

 devil . —Jamieson's Dictionary. 



