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many miles of their moorland solitudes, where the only other bird within hearing was the 

 familiar Meadow-Pipit, whose feeble note served but to deepen the impression produced by the 

 wild cry of the Curlew. This note is most bewildering when the watchful male birds are 

 disturbed on the hill-sides at the time the females are on their nests. One after another rises 

 from the brown heath, till the seemingly lifeless moor rings with then- pertinacious outcries. 

 Soon the alarm spreads, and, away in the distance, these wary creatures, scarcely seen against 

 the grey side of the mountain, rise into the air above their mates, hovering uneasily until the 

 cause of the disturbance disappears. Then as the traveller gets to a distance, just out of their 

 sight, they settle beside them again with a strange musical utterance of satisfaction — a long 

 gurgling and quavering note, exceedingly wild, yet not unpleasing when we think of the 

 faithful bird assuring his mate that all danger is past. When the young are hatched, the 

 note of the Curlew is even more vociferous, as both birds then join in these wailing remon- 

 strances ; I have often caught the chicks when about two or three days old ; they squat so close 

 to the ground that it is nearly impossible to find them among rough heath ; but on a bare spot 

 a practised eye may discover the little puff-balls cowering to avoid capture. When taken up, 

 however, and set down again, they become quite regardless, standing high on their ungainly legs, 

 and looking about with apparent surprise and wonderment." 



The Curlew is met with breeding over the whole of Northern Europe. In Great Britain it 

 is met with more especially in the north. Mr. J. A. Harvie Brown informs me that " on the 

 mainland of Scotland the Curlew (or ' Whaup ' of the Scotch shepherds) breeds most abundantly 

 in the southern and midland counties, although in all suitable localities it is found commonly in 

 the nesting-season. Its favourite breeding-grounds are the great level or undulating moors and 

 low hill-ranges of the interior ; and it is never found so numerously on the rockier, more broken, 

 and precipitous ground of the western and northern coast-lines. In the inner western islands, 

 however, it is common, but does not seem to nest in the Outer Hebrides. In Orkney it is tolerably 

 plentiful, but becomes much scarcer in Shetland ; " and Mr. A. G. More writes that it is " rare in 

 the south during summer, though a few pairs are recorded as breeding in Cornwall and Devon- 

 shire. Mr. H. Graves informs me that the Curlew 'breeds regularly near Charminster, in Dorset, 

 laying its eggs in the furrows of the fallow land ; ' but I suspect that in this locality, and also in 

 Wiltshire, the Stone-Curlew (CEdicnemus crepitans) has been mistaken for Numenius arquatus. 

 Further north there are one or two breeding-stations in Shropshire ; and Mr. O. Salvin finds the 

 nest in Derbyshire. The Curlew breeds in North and South Wales, and from Yorkshire north- 

 wards becomes more numerous." 



Throughout Scandinavia it breeds commonly, but is only occasionally found breeding in 

 Northern Germany ; though Jaubert and Barthelemy-Lapommeraye record it as sedentary in the 

 Camargue ; and Loche writes that some remain to breed in Algeria. 



I found numbers breeding in Finland when at Uleaborg in 1861, and took many eggs near 

 that town. The nests I found were usually placed on a tussock in a marshy locality, or near the 

 water, and invariably contained as a full complement four eggs. It seems, however, that the 

 eggs do exceed this number, or else another female may deposit a fifth egg in a neighbour's 

 nest ; for Mr. J. A. Harvie Brown has five eggs taken out of the same nest in Sutherlandshire. 

 I should consider that the fifth egg belonged to another female, as I know of instances where 



