BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 49 



to know it by. The curlew again, a bird of the coast and the 

 northern uplands, is familiar only to those who live near 

 marsh and moor, though its weird, wild clamour, as it 

 passes overhead in the night, is the source of a superstition, 

 which, as "Gabriel's hounds," "The Seven Whistlers," "The 

 Wild Huntsman," is common to all Northern Europe, and is 

 probably the origin of that fearful wild-fowl that was the 

 "trump of doleful drere," "the whistler shrill that whoso 

 hears doth die," to which Wordsworth alludes : 



" He the seven birds hath seen that never part, 

 Seen the seven whistlers in their nightly rounds, 

 And counted them ; " 



and Moore : 



" Oh ! did you hear a voice of death ? 

 And did you not mark a paly form, 

 Which rode on the silver mist of the heath, 

 And sang a ghostly dirge in the storm ? " 



All this, and ever so much more of quaint and interesting 

 tradition, has its source in the impressive uncanny cries with 

 which the curlews, flying by night, keep their company 

 all safely together. The woodpecker again, Tennyson's 

 " garnet-headed yaffingale," the bird of Picus the augur, which 

 breaks with his crazy ringing laugh so suddenly upon the 

 solitude, is familiar only to those who live near woods. 

 Marvel has some excellent but little-known lines on the 

 " hewel," as he calls this bird of many aliases : 



G 



