128 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



a wail from a flying bird, and sometimes the sharper 

 ground-note comes thrilling out of the darkness 

 from which I judge that some run home but 

 silence is the rule. By the very earliest twilight of 

 the morning, when the moon, if visible, is yet 

 luminous, and the stars shining brightly, the 

 Heimkehr is over, and now, till the evening, the 

 birds will be gathered together on their various 

 assembly-grounds. With the evening come the 

 dances, which I have elsewhere described, 1 and then 

 off they fly, again, to feed, not now in silence, but 

 with wail on wail as they go. Such, at least as far as 

 I have been able to observe, are the autumn habits 

 of these birds. In the spring they are far more 

 active during the daytime. Di-nocturnal I would 

 call the stone-curlew that is to say, equally at 

 home, as occasion serves, either by day or night. 

 Nothing is pleasanter than to see them running 

 over the sand, with their little, precise, stilty steps. 

 Sometimes one will crouch flat down, with its head 

 stretched straight in front of it, and then one has 

 the Sahara a desert scene. This habit, however, 

 does not appear to me to be so common in the 

 grown bird in the young one, no doubt, it is 

 much more strongly developed. 



The migration of the stone-curlew begins early in 

 October, but it is not till the end of that month that 

 all the birds are gone. About half or two-thirds of 

 the flock go first, in my experience, and are followed 

 by other battalions, at intervals of a few days. A 

 few stay on late into the month, but every day there 

 are less, and with October, as a rule, all are gone. 

 1 "Bird Watching," pp. 9-15. 



