THE WHIMBREL. 175 



the birds are by no means shy, though they do not play the 

 same tricks as the plovers and lapwings. 



If the season is more dry than usual, they suffer consi- 

 derably from want of food ; but as the rains usually set in 

 early they have abundance, and get fat as they return to the 

 south and the shores. There they flock, and are veiy shy, 

 and run and fly about with much celerity. They are also 

 tide birds, following the line of the water during the ebb, 

 but retiring to a distance during the flood. They do not 

 add so much to the interest of the shores as to that 

 of the inland moors, as they have more neighbours ; but 

 even on the best birded shore, the curlew is a bird worth 

 watching. 



The common name for the curlew in Scotland is the 

 whaup, which is the name also for the pod of a leguminous 

 plant before the seeds begin to swell. The allusion is to the 

 bill, or, as it is called, the neb of the bird ; and the term 

 ' whaup-nebbed ' is applied to express a long, thin, arched 

 nose, and also one who is cunning ; it is likewise one of the 

 attributes of those beings with which superstition peoples the 

 night : " ghaists an' whaup-nebbed things" are very generally 

 associated as equally to be dreaded ; and there is no doubt 

 that the allusion is directly to the curlew, as it whistles and 

 screams in those places in which the ignis fatuus is most 

 likely to appear, and where, from the want of paths or land- 

 marks, the people are most likely to wander and lose their 

 way in foggy weather. 



THE WHIMBREL (NlMlCniUS pJlOBOpUs). 



The whimbrel very much resembles the curlew in its 

 colours, its haunts, and its habits ; but it is a smaller bird, 

 being about seventeen inches long (of which the bill takes up 

 fully three), and about two feet and a half in breadth. The 

 colours also run more on black and white, and less on brown, 



