1 94 SCOLOPACIDiE. 



although the nights were dark. They were likewise heard on the 

 22nd of the same month in 1843,, and on the 13th in 1844 : on 

 the latter occasion, from midnight until four o'clock in the morn- 

 ing ; on the next evening they commenced so early as soon after 

 nine o' clock. In the following year, they first attracted attention 

 in this manner, on the 28th of February. A similar habit pre- 

 vails during the months of July and August. These flights are 

 taken in dark as well as moonlight nights, and in every state of 

 the tide. In the silence of a fine starry night, when nought else 

 is heard, the cry of the curlew, consisting both of the simple and 

 the long-drawn tremulous whistle, uttered from a great height in 

 the air, has a very fine effect. The calling and answering of these 

 birds by night, is often heard over the city of Dublin.* 



Name,'8fc> — Whaap is, in Ireland, as elsewhere, the name be- 

 stowed on this bird by the peasantry, — and I have always considered, 

 on account of its being the nearest approach in sound to the alarm- 

 cry of the bird. Mr. Yarrell, however, observes, on this subject, 

 " Throughout Scotland and its isles, the curlew is called a whaap, 

 or whaup, which, in Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, is said to be 

 a name for a goblin, supposed to go about under the eaves of 

 houses after night-fall, having a long beak. Sir Walter Scott 

 refers to this supposed connexion of a long beak with a suspicious 

 character in his ' Black Dwarf (chap, ii.), in a dialogue between 

 Hobbie Elliott and Earns-cliff, in the evening on Mucklestane 

 Moor : the former says, ' What need I care for the Mucklestane 

 Moor ony mair than ye do yoursel, Earns-cliff ? to be sure they 

 say there's a sort o' worricows and lang-nebbit things about the 

 land, but what need I care for them ?' and this enables us to 

 understand the fag end of a highlander's prayer, to be saved harm- 

 less 'from witches, warlocks, and aw lang-nebbed things/ "f I 

 should, however, imagine it quite as probable that the u lang- 

 nebbit things" derived the honour of their euphonious patronymic, 

 Whaap, from the curlew, as the bird does its more polite name, 

 from another of its calls. 



* Mr. R. Ball. f Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 512. 



