184 SCOLOPACID.E. 



THE CUELEW. 



Whaap. 



Numenius arquata, Linn, (sp.) 

 Scolopax „ „ 



Is common around the coast and in marshy inland dis- 

 tricts throughout the year ; * 



But much less so in the breeding season than at other times. 



Habits in Belfast Bay, 8fc. 



Of all our shore birds this is the most wary and quick- 

 sighted, and of its .caution we have interesting evidence almost- 

 daily, in Belfast Bay. In an undulating sweep of the coast, little 

 more than two miles from the town on the county Down shore, 

 named Harrison's Bay, there is a sand-bank, far out of the range 

 of gun-shot from any of the fences that half-encircle it, and 

 wholly inaccessible to the fowler from any direction without his 

 approach being observed. On this bank, the curlews, before being 

 driven so far off their feeding-grounds by the flowing tide as to 

 place them within gun-shot of any part of the shore, assemble 

 day and night, and calling most vociferously to all out-liers, as if 

 in dread that a single straggler from their forces, until this time 

 widely scattered over the banks, should be left behind. The 

 gathering cry having done its duty, they await, in " clamorous 

 confusion/' the close approach of the tide, which having reached 

 them, the greater number, in a large body, followed by nearly all 

 the others, in smaller flocks, rise in rapid flight to a considerable 

 elevation, and, assuming in due time the form of a wedge in front 

 but with the sides of unequal length, wing their way to some 



* In the works of Pennant, Bewick, Montagu, and Selby, the curlew is mentioned 

 only as frequenting the sea-coast in winter ; but in Ireland the young resort to it as 

 soon as thev can use their wings. 



