102 BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT OF GEELONG 
each side of the Queenscliff Road, whereas now I 
doubt if one could find a pair of the birds on the 
whole peninsula east of Geelong. Probably the 
increase of that pestilential importation, the English 
fox, has had something to do with the decrease, but 
the Curlew loves lightly timbered bush, and as that 
is cut out the birds go too. In these days it has a 
limited habitat in the areas south and west of the 
town, being found particularly in the belt of country 
which, from Torquay westwards, lies between the 
bush proper and the plains. Gnarwarre and the 
country for some miles to the south of Mount Moriac 
are still, I believe, strongholds of this beautiful and 
interesting bird, whose wailing night-call rises and 
falls as if it were the very spirit of the lone moonlit 
bush made vocal. 
Well do I recall the finding of my first Curlew's 
egg. It was Saturday, December 3rd, 1890, and 
with two other boys I was bird-nesting at Grub 
Lane. We had set out on foot, at 2 a.m., and the 
sun had not long risen when we were passing through 
a well-wooded paddock about fourteen miles from 
town. Something on the walk had given me a sore 
heel, and I was limping along rather dejectedly in 
the wake of my companions, my eyes on the ground. 
Suddenly there leapt to my sight, on the bare ground 
beneath a she-oak tree, what seemed to me the most 
beautifully mottled and marbled egg, in all shades 
of green, olive, and brown, that I had ever seen. We 
saw no sign whatever of the bird. 
