258 SPAEE THE CURLEW 



relative, the ibis, was among the ancient Egyptians 

 His wild whistle adds a characteristic charm to moor- 

 land and coast scenery ; his grotesque shape and 

 nocturnal flight carry us back in imagination to the 

 wastes and swamps of the Tertiary Age ; and among all 

 living creatures there is none of more blameless habits, 

 living as he does exclusively upon worms, molluscs, and 

 creeping things. 



Curlews and their congeners are such familiar objects, 

 their habits are so easily watched, and there are such a 

 host of observers in these days, that it might seem 

 unlikely that any new fact about them would be likely 

 to turn up. Nevertheless Mr. Francis Heatherley, in 

 a description of the ternery at Wells in Norfolk 

 communicated to the October number of the Zoologist, 

 upsets a statement about the young of these birds 

 which has gone unchallenged for generations. 



' In the case of many birds (he says), e.g. curlew, peewit, 

 and golden plover, the books say that the young leave the 

 nest as soon as hatched ; while I have found that they remain 

 in the nest upwards of sixty hours after hatching. But as 

 regards the ringed plover it seems literally true, the chicks 

 wandering off within half an hour of being hatched to feed 

 on the sandy shore under the paternal eye, leaving their 

 mother to hatch out the remaining eggs.' 



Talking of young curlews, does any one wish to see a 

 consummate example of the lost art of wood-engraving ? 

 Let him turn up Yarrell's British Birds, vol. ii. p. 615 

 (third edition, 1856), and refresh his eye with the 

 portrait of a young curlew there. It is almost incred- 

 ible that such delicacy of line combined with such 



