COMMON CURLEW. 579 



and seek the breeding grounds. Mr. Selby feels assured 

 from observations lie has been able to make, that this move- 

 ment is not so confined in extent as is supposed ; that the 

 winter visiters of the coast of Northumberland do not satisfy 

 the migrative impulse by a flight of a few miles into the in- 

 terior ; but that these retire to the Highlands, or northern 

 parts of Scotland and its isles, and many visit high northern 

 latitudes to be hereafter mentioned, thus giving place upon 

 the moors and open grounds of the border counties to those 

 birds which have wintered in the southern parts of the king- 

 dom. Mr. Thompson says the Curlew breeds in some of 

 the large bogs of Ireland. Mr. Eyton says it breeds near 

 Holyhead, and on Whixan moss in Shropshire. Mr. 

 Couch, in his Cornish Fauna, says some few breed on the 

 high grounds in Cornwall. Montagu states that they bred 

 in his time on the high hills of Exmoor ; and Mr. Bellamy 

 says that this bird now breeds on Dartmoor. Montagu 

 also mentions that he had taken the young on the moun- 

 tains of Northumberland and in the low swampy grounds of 

 the Isle of Mull in Scotland. Mr. Selby mentions the 

 Curlew as very abundant during the breeding-season in all 

 the central parts of the county of Sutherland, where heath 

 and marshy tracts prevail. Mr. Dunn says the Curlew is 

 rather plentiful in Orkney and Shetland, resorting to the 

 most retired parts of mossy hills, in which situation it lays 

 its eggs, procuring its food from the muddy banks of lakes. 

 Throughout Scotland and its isles the Curlew is called a 

 Whaap, or Whaup, which in Jamieson's Scottish Diction- 

 ary is said to be a name for a goblin, supposed to go about 

 under the eaves of houses after nightfall, having a long beak. 

 Sir Walter Scott refers to this supposed connection of a 

 long beak with a suspicious character in his Black Dwarf 

 (chap, ii.), in a dialogue between Hobbie Elliott and Earns- 



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