174 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



The name "Curlew" is of course an attempt to syllable the bird's well-known 

 call ; I have always thought the French edition—" Courlis "—much the nearest 

 translation. It is a difficult bird to come to terms with; by the sea, at low tide, 

 unapproachable, except by a fluke. The only way to bring it to bag with any 

 degree of certainty is to observe its line of flight, and be there, well hidden, 

 before the tide turns ; a much more interesting method of pursuit, however, is 

 to hunt it up at high water, when it is usually on the grass fields, etc., 

 in the neighbourhood of the shore, searching for the land snails, of which it 

 is very fond. At such times it may be approached under cover of ditches 

 or hedges; it needs careful stalking, however. Moreover, when fresh from the 

 moors, i.e., at the end of August and during early September, the Curlew is 

 an excellent bird for the table; later on, after a prolonged sea-shore diet, it gets 

 much less delicate' in flavour. In its breeding quarters it feeds on" snails, slugs, 

 beetles, worms, insects, and seems to be very fond of the fruit of the crowberry 

 (empetrumj, a common moorland plant. I have found, I may remark here, that 

 young ravens in the nest are very largely fed by their parents on the fruit of 

 this plant, which (in Iceland, to which locality I am referring) have been pre- 

 served through the winter under the snow. I wonder if this has anything to do 

 with the English name of the plant in question, the meaning of which is other- 

 wise hardly obvious ? On the shore the Curlew lives on moUusca (being very 

 partial to young mussels), annelids, and the shell-snails it finds, as has been 

 mentioned, on the adjacent land at high tide. 



The Curlew is not a favourite bird with the wild-fowler ; unceasingly watchful, 

 and possessed of powers of scent almost equal to those of sight, the Curlew 

 instantly alarms the whole neighbourhood, like a Raven in a deer-forest. But I 

 have always thought that its interesting presence and melodious call added greatly 

 to the enjoyment of a spring walk or fishing excursion in the northern moorlands 

 near which my boyhood and youth were passed. 



The Curlew makes a charming inhabitant of a walled garden, and is as useful 

 as interesting ; it is needless to say that watchful wing-cutting is necessary, unless 

 the bird be pinioned. Like many wild and wary birds (and animals, e.g., the 

 Roe- deer) the Curlew gets surprisingly tame and friendly in captivity. 



