250 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



obtaining a sufficient food-supply by night. Each individual 

 seems to whistle its loudest during this day-time flight to the 

 feeding-grounds. 



Their whistle has several variations soon after their arrival. 

 Until May it is blurred, and often consists merely of a hoarse 

 chuckle incessantly repeated for a short time. But about the 

 first week in May their note is " curlew"; first short and in- 

 distinct, and then shrill and continued, the first short note being 

 gradually dropped until only the full note remains. It has been 

 suggested that their whistling by night is a call to inform one 

 another of their whereabouts during cloudy weather. My own 

 experience is that they are incomparably more noisy on moonlight 

 nights than when the sky is overcast, and that therefore this 

 reason is not the correct one. In this district the brood is 

 generally hatched off by the commencement of June ; but so well 

 do the colourings of the young birds harmonise with those of the 

 heathland that it is a matter of extreme difficulty to detect them. 

 The eggs are usually laid in a slight hollow, sometimes on the 

 open heath, but more generally on the upland " brecks." There 

 is no material for the nest save a few of the previous year's dried 

 bracken fronds, and search how one will, it is practically only by 

 accident that the two eggs can be found. After the young ones 

 are hatched it seems to be their rule to take care of them- 

 selves on the approach of danger ; their parents doing likewise. 

 It is at this time that one or other of the parent birds may 

 occasionally be seen with head and neck extended, as in the 

 beautiful life-group in the British Museum of Natural History. 

 A remarkable fact of the authenticity of this nest and its sur- 

 roundings struck me as a prehistoric archaeologist. On the slab 

 of heathland turf is a prehistoric flint flake, such as one may find 

 on any of the local heaths. Locally the Stone Curlew is generally 

 called the "Cullew," but is occasionally termed the " Sandpiper" 

 or " Willie Reeve." 



What effect the planting previously mentioned may have upon 

 the Stone Curlew cannot yet be determined; but certainly the 

 more heathland there is covered with trees the more circum- 

 scribed must their haunts be in future. One cannot but hope 

 that this characteristic breckland bird, with its once-heard but 

 never-forgotten whistle, will long continue to occupy the haunts 

 of its extinct companion, the Great Bustard. 



