Natural History 423 



herbage which early Spring brings with it. A trained eye is 

 needed to distinguish them from their surroundings, even at a 

 short distance. 



The Curlew haunts the sea-shore during the greater part 

 of the year, but in Spring retires to some slack or valley in hilly 

 country, and makes a nest on the ground. The situation is gen- 

 erally very lonely, and the watchful birds quickly show them- 

 selves alive to the presence of a stranger. Usually, their note 

 is a monotonous and melancholy sound, heard, as it often is, at 

 night-time in the stillness of the moorland, but we know of no 

 other bird that makes the clamour the Curlew does when its 

 domestic privacy is invaded. It flies up and down the valley, 

 shrieking to awaken the echoes, and looking as if it would like 

 to do something dreadful to the human who had ventured into 

 its domain. 



The Snipe is the most difficult of indigenous game-birds to 

 shoot, on account of its trick of half-stopping and suddenly dart- 

 ing. During the breeding season he performs curious antics in 

 the air, rising to a great height, and "precipitating himself down- 

 wards with astonishing violence, producing in his descent the 

 peculiar sound variously described as drumming, bleating, scythe- 

 whetting, and neighing." The peculiar drumming sound was 

 long the subject of controversy, but recent observations have 

 made it clear that it is due to the vibration of the two outer tail- 

 feathers, which have a peculiar structure. 



I 9 



The Cuckoo 



The Cuckoo, as is well known, not only builds no nest of 

 its own, but foists its eggs on other species, and has its young 

 reared without trouble to itself but to the great detriment of 

 the rightful children of the foster-parents. The story, indeed, is 

 one of the most curious in the whole realm of natural history, 

 and the facts are now becoming better known; among other 



