302 OUTDOOR LIFE IN ENGLAND 



of the family to which it belongs, and, I think I 

 may add, by far the most wary and difficult to 

 approach. Curlews may be met with more or 

 less frequently on all of our higher downlands 

 and moors throughout the spring, summer, and 

 autumn months, occasionally remaining inland 

 as late as November and December in very mild 

 seasons and so long as food is plentiful, when 

 they betake themselves to the sea-coasts and 

 marshes until the spring, when they return to 

 their breeding-grounds. After corn harvest they 

 frequent the stubble-fields in considerable num- 

 bers, and are at that period of the year excellent 

 eating ; but when shot in the winter near the 

 sea they have an unpleasantly strong and fishy 

 flavour. Wild and wary birds, with a wild and 

 plaintive cry, they are fitting inhabitants of the 

 desolate marshlands and mud-flats which they 

 frequent. Often when sitting in my smoking- 

 room late at night in the autumn and early winter 

 I have heard them whistling overhead, the sound 

 being audible down the chimney. At one time 

 a curlew was in the habit of passing over the 

 house regularly every night at the same hour ; 

 and many a time when returning home over the 

 downs from shooting, in the dusk of an autumn 

 evening, when the lights in the village below 

 were beginning to shine out from the cottage win- 

 dows, I have heard the cry of a curlew, and could 

 perhaps descry the bird winging its way far over- 

 head in the clear though darkening sky. I know 



