OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 185 



other shore birds ; but during the breeding season, although many 

 pairs often nest on the same moor or upland waste, they are not 

 very social. The food of the Curlew varies a good deal according 

 to season. In summer, worms, insects and their larvae, and 

 various ground fruits and berries are eaten; in winter, sand- 

 worms, crustaceans, and mollusks are its principal fare, and 

 various vegetable fragments have been found in its stomach 

 during the latter period. Although a resident with us the Curlew 

 is a regular bird of passage in many Continental districts, coming 

 to its summer quarters in April and May, and returning during 

 September and October. 



Nidification. — In March the Curlew begins to return to its 

 inland breeding places, and the eggs are laid during April and 

 May. Its great breeding grounds are the wild, swampy moors at 

 a considerable elevation above sea-level, but many birds nest on 

 the rough fallows near the moors, and I have known their eggs to 

 be broken during spring tilling. The nest is generally made on 

 some dry patch of the moor, often under the shelter of a little 

 bush or tuft of cotton-grass or rush, or yet again on the bare earth 

 of the fallows, sometimes in a footprint of a horse or cow. This 

 nest is very slight, merely a hollow about ten inches in diameter 

 and two inches in depth, sparingly lined with a few scraps of dead 

 herbage or dry leaves. In some cases no nest whatever is made. 

 The eggs are four in number, pyriform in shape, and various shades 

 of olive-green or buff in ground colour, spotted and blotched with 

 olive-brown and pale gray. Sometimes a few streaky scratches of 

 blackish brown occur. They measure on an average 27 inches 

 in length by i'85 inch in breadth. Both parents assist in the 

 task of incubation, which lasts about a month. When its breeding 

 grounds are invaded by man, the Curlew becomes very noisy, 

 usually flying into the air long before the spot where the nest is 

 situated is reached. One bird is usually on the look-out and 

 conveys the warning to its mate ; the cry is taken up by other 

 birds, and soon the whole moor is in a state of commotion. Only 

 one brood is reared in the year. 



Diagnostic Characters. — Numenius, with the lower back 

 and rump white, and the tarsus more than three inches in length. 

 Length, 21 to 26 inches. 



