COMMON CURLEW. 197 



visible when, uttering their loud cry of " cour-lieu," 

 " cour-lieu "* a sound, however wild and shrill, not 

 less grateful to the ear on a bleak range of ooze or 

 shingle, than on some scarcely less desolate moorland 

 they would betake themselves once more to their inland 

 haunt. 



The great difference of size in individuals of this 

 species must have attracted the notice of every natu- 

 ralist and sportsman, but whether a matter of sex or 

 of age, appears still a matter of doubt.f I am sorry 

 that I cannot here say anything positive on this point, 

 not having had the opportunity of dissecting a suffi- 

 cient number of large and small specimens,}: but 

 supposing the largest to be really females, the males 

 look more like whimbrels in comparison with their more 

 than " better halves." Mr. Lubbock, in reference to 

 this point, remarks that these large birds, from their 



* Mr. Harting, in his " Birds of Middlesex," gives two other 

 notes from his observation of this species, " wha-up" and in the 

 spring "whee-ou, whee-ou," the latter I have frequently dis- 

 tinguished. 



f In Meyer's "British Birds," (vol. 4, p. 196) the female is thus 

 described " Larger than the male, her colouring is more tinged with 

 ash, and her legs brown. The young are smaller according to age, 

 and their beaks also shorter and by far less curved." The legs 

 of the adult male he describes as "bluish-ash colour." Degland 

 also, in his " Ornithologie Europienne " (vol. 2. p. 166), gives a 

 very similar statement. 



J A fine bird in my own collection (sex not known) has the 

 bill five inches and five-eighths, total length from tip of beak 

 to end of tail feathers twenty-five inches (when stuffed) ; tarsus 

 three inches and five-eighths; and weighed two pounds three 

 ounces and a-half. Another specimen, ascertained by dissection 

 to be a female, has the bill five inches and four-eighths; total 

 length from beak to tail twenty-four inches and three-eighths; 

 tarsus three inches and four-eighths. The stomach contained only 

 portions of the claws of minute Crustacea. 



