96 WILD LIFE IN CHINA. 



A picture of a full-grown curlew in good condition is a 

 picture indeed. There are none of the gorgeous tints of the 

 pheasant to dazzle the eye, no tropic or metallic lustre to 

 astonish with its brilliancy ; indeed the colours of the curlew 

 are homely in the extreme, simple browns, greys, and whites, 

 with a dash of gold in the bill, and all arranged in such a 

 manner, so lined and dotted, and dashed with lights and 

 darks that, squatting on the bare sand, the curlew might well 

 be mistaken for a little hummock of sandy weeds left by the 

 tide. It is not for colour that the curlew demands our 

 admiration, but for form. His classical title Xmnenius means 

 "like the crescent shape of the new moon" and has special 

 reference to the beautiful curve of long bill. This may 

 extend from six inches to nearly a foot, and is but one of the 

 several curves which a draughtman's eye loves to follow. 

 From the base of the bill there is a gentle rise over the top 

 of the head followed by a delightful curve round to the junction 

 of the neck with the body, then another, more abrupt, joining 

 that of the back and terminating at the tail. The frontal 

 curves round the neck, breast, and belly are equally delicate. 

 Please don't take this description to read in frontof specimens 

 to be met with in collections, otherwise the results may be as 

 disappointing to the reader as they would certainly be detri- 

 mental to the descriptive fame of the writer. Stuffed birds 

 too often are no more like their living representatives than 

 a scarecrow is like a man. That is generally the misfortune 

 of the taxidermist, who perhaps has never in his life seen a 

 living specimen, which also accounts, of course, for the 

 unnatural attitudes in which both draughtsmen and taxiderm- 

 ists sometimes present their efforts to us. 



As a' bird for the table the curlew has size to recommend 

 him, for he runs from a foot and a half to over two feet in 

 length. The biggest whimbrel, on the other hand, rarely exceeds 

 the size of the smallest curlew. In England the common 

 curlew is known as Xumenius arqitata, but his representative 

 here is called by Pere David, A r . lineatus, the whimbrel being 

 X. phoeopus, the "dark faced." 



In form and general appearance the whimbrel is much 

 like the curlew, proportionally a little thicker in body perhaps, 

 and the markings are much the same except that the darker 

 parts of the wing coverts are less marked in the whimbrel 

 than in the curlew. Like that of its larger cousin, its habitat 

 is very wide, varying as it does 



"From Greenland's icy mountains 

 To India's coral strand." 



In April it may frequently be met with in this province when 

 on its way up north. Amongst its favourite spots then are 

 the newly flooded paddy fields, but it is characteristically 



