330 



BIRDS. 



Curlew in the old Statistiml Account which relate to Perth, Forfar, 

 or Kincardine ; but Don includes it as " breeding in the mountains," 

 and includes Whimbrels as doing so also, though without remarks 

 (as indeed he often does), rendering it difficult to put a value 

 upon his observations in many cases. We also find the same repeated 

 in the Black Book, but this again is in all probability merely quoting 

 Don, as again there are no remarks, except that the Curlew is 

 simply entered under the heading " Ornithology of the Coast," 

 showing, it would almost seem, some difference of appreciation 

 of its value even in 1843 ! ^ — i.e. some slight difference from Don's 

 estimate, "breeding in the mountains." 



Col. Drummond Hay spoke of it as common, and " in numbers 

 less diminished than those of some other species which are subject 

 to persecution " ; and again : " In some districts drainage and improve- 

 ments do not appear to have affected them so much as other species." 



Fairly common in Rannoch (Godfrey). 



Curlews arrived inland in the centre of Kincardineshire on March 

 10th in 1897. 



I know where Curlews have greatly increased in numbers during 

 recent years, due distinctly to burning vast stretches of heather in 

 the west. My experience of the breeding haunts of the Curlew is 

 that it prefers grassy hill-slopes to deep heather flats or braes, though 

 it is well known to breed freely also in some such latter-named localities. 

 WTiat I mean to express is, that it 'prefers the former to the latter, 

 and is to be found more abundantly in the former kind of ground. And 

 where short heather moors ^ occur interspersed with lowland ground 

 and blocks of plantations, it is also often common — as, for instance, on 

 the Monteathmont Moor, as indicated by the Rev. Mr. M'Connochie. 



In 1905, in the month of May, I found the Curlew common in the 

 south of the area around Crieff and up Glen Artney, and also upon 

 the long grassy foothills which roll up from the north shore of Loch 

 Tay. Similarly Curlews are common along the lower levels of the 

 Allan Water and the east-flowing tributaries of the Earn, and upon 

 the grassy northern slopes of the Ochils and the Sidlaws. Perhaps 

 nowhere at the present day are Curlews so common as among the 



^ In one of our previous volumes — Argyll — we pointed out the comparatively late 

 advent of the Curlew on the west side of Scotland, by which it appears that *' Curlews 

 first made their ajypearance!' about forty years previous to 1879 on the high lands to the 

 north of Loch Awe ! [loc. cit., p. 184). Compare with the above by Don in the east. 



- In distinction to muir, where no heather has grown, unless, mayhap, introduced. 

 This at least is the usual acceptation in Scotland of the Scottish word " muir," 



