250 EEMIXISCEXCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



The Cuelew 



" Mourn, ye wee songsters o' tlie wood, 

 Ye grouse that crap the heather bed, 

 Ye curlews calling through a clud, 



Ye whistling plover : 

 And mourn, ye whirring patrick brood. 

 He's gane for ever." — Bcens. 



An ancient proverb applies to this bird — 



" A curlew, be she white or be she black. 

 She carries twelve-pence on her back." 



The Curlew is found in many parts of England, and 

 may be met with at all seasons. In the winter they 

 frequent the seacoast and marshes in considerable 

 numbers, where they live upon worms, marine insects, 

 and different fishy substances which they find upon the 

 beach, left by the retiring tide. They are generally 

 found in the summer upon the heathy mountainous 

 morasses, and in open weather they frequent the turnip 

 and pasture fields, where they feed upon worms, slugs, 

 flies, and other insects, which their long bills enable 

 them, like the woodcock, to procure from the soft earth, 

 and here they breed. 



The female (which is bigger, but whose plumage is 

 nearly like the male's) makes her nest upon the ground 

 in a dry tuft of rushes or grass, of withered materials, 

 and about the month of April lays four eggs of a pale 

 olive colour, marked mth brownish spots. These birds 

 vary considerably in size, as well as in different shades 



