120 
HOME AND NEST. 
are white, the former having black bars across it, and the 
latter dark marks and spots of a similar shape to those on 
the back. This species has not been found in America, 
but it is dispersed over the greater part of Europe, and 
probably of Asia, from many parts of which skins have 
been transmitted. In Britain it is one of our aquatic birds, 
and it remains with us through the year, breeding on all 
the elevated moors, from Cornwall and Devonshire to the 
northern extremity of Scotland, and shifting from the hills 
to the sea shores, and back again, according to the season. 
It is towards the end of March that they generally leave 
the shores, where they have resided in flocks, from Sep- 
tember, and, separating in pairs, betake themselves to the 
interior, where, on the highest and less frequented moors, 
they deposit their eggs, and rear their young. Here is 
Macgillivray's picture of their home life a little later in 
the season : — 
It is now the beginning of May, The sunny banks are covered 
with primroses, the golden catkins of the willow fringe the brooks, 
while the spikes of the cotton-grass ornament the moss-clad moor. 
Let US ascend the lonely glen, and wandering on the heathy slopes, 
listen to the clear but melancholy whistle of the Plover, the bleating 
of the Snipe, and the loud screams of the Curlew. Here is a bog 
interspersed with tufts of heath, among which is a profusion of 
Myrica gale. Some Lapwings are coming up, gliding and flapping 
along; a Black-breasted Plover has stationed himself on the top 
of a mound of green grass, and a Ring Ouzel has just sprung from the 
furze on the brae. See ! "What is that? A Hare among our feet? 
No, a Curlew fluttering along the ground, wounded, unable to 
escape ; run ! she has been sitting. Here is the nest in a hollow, 
imder the shelter of two tufts of heath, and a stunted ^villow. It is 
composed of dry grass, some tv.'igs of heath, and perhaps portions of 
other plants not very neatly disposed. It is very shallow, and about 
a foot in diameter. The eggs are four, pyriform and excessively 
large, three inches long, an inch and ten-twelfths across, light olive 
or dull yellowish brown, or pale greyish green, blotched and spotted 
with umber brown, the markings crowded on the larger end ; so little 
do they contrast in colour with the surrounding objects, that unless the 
bird spring up among our feet, we should scarcely have observed them. 
Far up on the hill side you hear the loud cry of the Curlew, which is 
presently responded to from the opposite slope ; in another place a 
bird commences a series of modulated cries, and springing up, per- 
forms a curved flight, flapping its wings and screaming as it proceeds. 
Presently the whole glen is vocal, but not with sweet sounds like those of 
