GREAT CURLEW AND WHIMBREL 63 



should see one alive at the bottom of the tidal street. 

 I reached the tide all right, but pitched into it head 

 first, and got hooked out, but no Curlew had made 

 its appearance. 



A fine specimen is before me as I write, which 

 one of my fowling friends sent to me, so that I may 

 have my memory refreshed a little. It is necessary 

 to be pretty definite in asking for certain birds. 

 Once I required a Gull ; the result was a large 

 basketful of live Cobs, and they were very lively 

 indeed. 



There is a coast saying, not confined to our 

 particular part of it, that any man that has killed 

 seven Curlews has killed enough for a lifetime. I 

 have known six killed at one shot from a shoulder 

 gun, but it was a most exceptional shot ; some fell 

 in the water, rough water too it was ; but the shooter 

 was his own water-spaniel, and he plunged in and 

 gathered his birds. If he had not done so, the Cobs, 

 the Black-backed Gulls, would have gathered them 

 for him. In some parts of the coast, birds in im- 

 mature plumage beat up and down the tide ; great 

 brown speckled creatures these are, and as voracious 

 as vultures. It is most exasperating after a dirty 

 crawl only to cripple a Curlew, and then to see him 

 drop on the waves just out of range of a fowling- 

 gun. There he is, you can see him, but you will 

 never get him, although the wind is dead on shore, 

 and it is high tide ; for those two birds coming up 

 with rapid beats of the wing are Cobs : their keen 

 eyes saw the effect of that shot a long way off, and 



