12 Wade: S^afiis of the S/oiie Curlew in Yorkshire. 



warren existed between that place and Bempton, land covered 

 with the whins, coarse grass and short heather, typical of the 

 old sheep-walks. 



Whereas then, 150 years ago, cultivation was carried on 

 in the valleys only, and the high wolds and poorer soils were 

 devoted to warren and sheep-walk, now, every acre of land 

 that can be made to produce anything under the plough is 

 cultivated. To a bird like the Stone Curlew, a lover of waste 

 places and open countr}^ this enclosure has meant gradual 

 -extinction. The records of the status of the bird in Yorkshire 

 are but scant}^ ; for, unlike the Great Bustard, which it closely 

 resembles in habits, it is not a sporting bird, and therefore 

 no one thought it worth while keeping a record of the species. 

 I think we may safely take it, however, that it ran on all fours 

 with its large relative, and that Mr. Nelson's excellent account 

 of the Great Bustard in " Birds of Yorkshire," will also give 

 US- the best picture of the history of the Stone Curlew in our 

 county. Doubtless it bred extensively on the plains of York, 

 where patches of scanty heather and uncultivated land here 

 and there are the only remaining traces of the sandy wastes 

 formerly existing, but we have no record of any of these, 

 except Tollingham Moor and Cliffe Warren, situated on either 

 side of the Market Weighton Canal, some four or five miles 

 south-east of Market Weighton, and between Cliffe and Holme- 

 on-Spalding Moor, on the borders of w^hat was once the great 

 W^allingfen. 



Tollingham Moor, named by Dresser as a breeding place of 

 the species, was ploughed up previous to the sixties, but upon 

 Cliffe Warren, up to 1873, the species was well known to 

 residents ; one of whom, Mr. Jno. Reynolds, now living at South 

 Cliffe, can remember seven or eight pairs breeding near there, 

 and still describes the wary nature of the bird, w^hich would run 

 from the eggs with head depressed, skulking behind each tuft 

 of herbage, for one hundred yards, before taking to flight. 

 JEggs taken from here were in the collection of the late Mr. 

 N. F. Dobree, of Beverley, and are still in that of Mr. F. Boyes, 

 taken in the period 1868 to 1873. Mr. Boyes yet speaks with 

 pleasure of listening to the wild musical cry of the bird, when it 

 flew from the warren to its feeding ground in the evening. 

 On the warrens of Lincolnshire — Brumby, Risby, Manton, etc., 

 the bird bred in precisely similar localities till i^cent years, 

 and an odd pair may perhaps linger there still, unless the march 



Naturalist, 



