236 THE FOWLER IN IRELAND. 



a few yards in the dark, and can be heard an im- 

 mense distance, at least two miles, on a still night. 

 When busily feeding, or holding parliament among 

 themselves, the note is a rough grating croak, 

 almost startling from its peculiarity, and yet very 

 subdued in comparison to the bird's usual shriek 

 of alarm. Curlews do not appear to possess that 

 acute sense of hearing which their powers of sight 

 and smell would lead one to expect. I have several 

 times crept up unnoticed within thirty paces of 

 Curlews from behind a bank or hedge ; an experi- 

 mental cough or whistle, not unreasonably loud, did 

 not alarm them, and the crack of a match was also 

 disregarded, but the first whiff of tobacco and they 

 were off in dire confusion. Their sense of smell 

 and touch, as in Snipe and Woodcock, is most 

 marvellous, and equally perfect is their vision. To 

 know that these birds can plunge the bill, inches 

 deep, into mud or sand, and pull up worms by the 

 score that they cannot see, is to learn the perfection 

 of uncertain sustenance. The bill of a Curlew is 

 a mere bundle of delicate nerves of the most sen- 

 sitive order, enclosed in a thin skin ; but their mode 

 of obtaining food varies, for I have taken out of the 

 gizzard of a Curlew a large handful of cockles, 

 swallowed whole, as well as the small heath snail 

 {Helix ericetorum). 



A white Curlew, as well as a black one, now and 

 then occurs. Mr. Neligan, of Tralee, has one of 

 spotless white in his collection that was shot in co. 

 Kerry, and I have a black one that was killed in 

 Galway Bay in 1877. The latter was sold as an 

 Ibis, which, however, it is not. Though many 



