COMMON CTJELEW. 3 



field-glasses. After having taken your bearings and ' spotted ' the probable 

 whereabouts of a nest to the best of your ability, it only remains to institute a 

 methodical search as is customary when looking for Lapwings' eggs. I am quite 

 sure that in nine cases out of ten it is lost labour going to Avork on a haphazard 

 principle. Only when the eggs are on the point of delivering up their contents 

 will an old Curlew cling to them until your approach is so imminent as to make 

 the ultimate discovery of the nest an easy matter. Not seldom the cries of other 

 Curlews and their whisking flight round and about tend very materially to confuse 

 those intruding on their breeding-haunts. 



" The third week in April is about the best time for securing fresh eggs — 

 at least, this is my experience of birds that annually breed on the waste lands of 

 Merionethshire. The note, when the nest is invaded and the scared bird settles 

 again at no great distance, is frequently a very sad kind of 'pee, pee, ])ee. One 

 nest that I found on May 7, 1895, was on the side of a mound, a very neatly 

 . rounded cavity being sparingly filled with short bents culled from close by, and 

 strips of dry moss, which substance I have observed to be more or less utilised in 

 every nest I have examined. Bits of down appear after the bird has been sitting 

 for any length of time, as in the case of the Sparrow-Hawk under similar 

 conditions. I think the foregoing is a very reliable description — and one that I 

 have frequently confirmed — of a typical nest of the Common Curlew. It was 

 written, like the descriptions of many nests belonging to other species, actually 

 on the spot where I found the eggs. 



" The bird as a general rule quits the nest in silence, flying direct ; keeping 

 low, she describes a great wide circle, eventually rising high in the air and 

 wheeling about, uttering plaintive cries. Occasionally she will come back and 

 settle near you, and in one instance I virtually trampled on a sitting bird before 

 she moved. The eggs were on the point of hatching, and the Curlew merely 

 flew the length of a fishing-rod and then stalked disconsolately away, pausing 

 every two or three yards to look back at me and utter her characteristic wailing 

 note. Incubation lasts for a full month, and the young leave the nest in 

 24 hours. The rippling cry of the Curlew in the spring of the year is one of 

 the most delightful sounds in Nature." 



Mr. Abel Chapman gives the following details respecting the nidification of 

 this species * : — " The Curlews are not at all particular as to site ; their nest is 

 usually high up on the hills, but grass or heather, long or short, bare or dry 

 ground, or bog — all seem to suit them alike. Even when the nest is among 



* ' Bird-Life of the Borders ' (London : Gurney & Jackson, 1889), pp. 29, 30. 



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