THE CURLEW. 191 



the wild district of the Glens, within a few miles of Cushendall. 

 When at Tooine, in August 1846, a boatman who rowed us to 

 Church Island, in Lough Beg, stated that he had been told of its 

 having nests in the islands, &c, about there ; — in all respects very 

 favourable sites for them. The gamekeeper of Mr. Stewart, of 

 the Horn (Donegal), has seen their eggs and young in the bogs 

 of that remote district ; and I had confirmation of their breeding 

 in a tract about seven miles south-west of Dunfanaghy, by two 

 young birds of the year being brought to me thence on the 26th 

 June, 1832, on the morning of which day they were shot. These 

 birds were about the size of whimbrels ; they are stated also to 

 breed in the district of Ennishowen, and in the wilder parts of the 

 county Monaghan. I am not aware whether the chain of moun- 

 tains in Sligo, called the Curlews, has reference to the bird or not. 

 According to Mr. G. Jackson (gamekeeper), curlews bred very 

 commonly in some localities every year that he lived in Connaught 

 (from about 1829-1839). He used to find from ten to twenty 

 nests each season, in the extensive flat bogs lying between the 

 towns of Swineford and Ballaghaderren, in the county of Mayo ; 

 and Castlerea and Frenchpark, in the county of Roscommon. 

 He never found the nest (so called), which is a mere hollow on 

 some dry tussock, in any elevated place, and does not recol- 

 lect ever seeing one contain more than four eggs. He more fre- 

 quently found the young than the nest ; and generally, when train- 

 ing young pointers, after the young grouse could fly well, in the 

 latter part of July and beginning of August. June and July is 

 the principal time of the birds' breeding there. 



Major Higginson states that curlews continue, to the present 

 time, to breed in considerable numbers in a large bog near his 

 residence in King's-county. He is in the habit of exercising Ins 

 horses in a field which adjoins the bog ; and, when there in the 

 breeding season, the curlews fly close to him, and are very clamor- 

 ous, in the same manner as peewits.* 



The curlew breeds in considerable numbers on the bog of Allen, 



* Mr. J. R. Garrett, June 1848. 



