274 COMMON CURLEW. 



dawn in motion with the birds we believe the 

 males rising aloft with a slow ascent, sailing- 

 along, and uttering their shrill quivering whistlo 

 peculiar to this season ; or both will meet any 

 stranger with noisy screams, beating at him, and 

 approaching within a few yards. If they have been 

 annoyed or fired at, their usual wariness overcomes 

 their other instincts, and, although they may ap- 

 proach with the same screams, they are careful to 

 keep out of harm's way, and will retire to some 

 eminence, whence, when approached, they will run 

 and skulk, as if to decoy away the intruder. The 

 nest is placed on some dry part of the moor or tuft 

 in the moss ; we have found them also in a furrow 

 of fallow land, or of newly sown oats ; and it is 

 simply a hollow, smoothed by the bird, having in 

 some instances a few grasses, or other leaves lining 

 the bottom. In some districts the young are sought 

 after about the time they are able to fly, and are 

 considered excellent eating. We have occasionally 

 shot them before the pointers, so late as the 12th of 

 August ; these were, however, late broods, as about 

 this period, or very soon after, they have entirely left 

 the moors, and returned to the sea shores, whence, 

 during the influx of the tide, they travel inland, 

 and rest in the pastures or meadows, regularly re- 

 turning to feed with the ebbing waters. Though 

 at a distance, they seem instinctively to know the 

 proper time, and we have often observed them 

 commencing to return almost to a minute, the first 

 birds appearing when certain marks first began to 



