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HABITAT OF THE CURLEW. 
supported by one frail linib, must certainly topple over ignominiously. 
He looks his best when walking, for he has a very dignified air; or 
when flying, his aerial movements being executed with equal vigour 
and swiftness. 
Many enemies has the white egret ; among these the lynx is very 
formidable, — but not so formidable as man, who pursues him in the 
marshes of the Danube with unflagging ardour, and carries off his 
brilliant plumes as a trophy of his skill. 
THE CURLEW. 
In " Geoffrey Hamlyn," the first and best book of Henry Kingsley, 
we are bidden to participate in the joy of Dr. Mulhaus at discovering 
ill the Devonshire moors a new scolopax. None but a naturalist, 
perhaps, can feel the amount of enthusiasm proper on such an occasion; 
but every bird-lover rejoices in an addition to his stores of knowledge. 
Among the species of Scolopacidce well known in England, is the great 
curlew or whaup. She has a long decurved bill, with a robust body, 
supported on long slender shanks. She frequents the sea-coast from 
September to March, and then retires to the high purple moors in the 
interior, where her clamour is a constant sound, and welcome enough 
to the lonely wayfarer. Macgillivray, who almost deserves to be called 
the Ruskin of Bi-itish naturalists, sketches with truth and vivacity her 
inland habitat. 
Primroses bloom in patches of gold on the sunny banks, the brooks 
are fringed with the yellow catkins of the willow, and the mossy moor 
is enriched with the spikes of the cotton-grass. As we ascend the 
wild, rugged glen, loud on our ear fall the clear but melancholy whistle 
of the plover, the bleating of the snipe, and the scream of the curlew. 
Coming to a bog interspersed with tufts of heath, we startle the lap- 
wings from their haunts ; a black-breasted plover watches us from the 
top of a mound of green grass, and a ring-ousel springs from the furze 
on the brae. And see ! what is that ? Why, a curlew fluttering along 
the ground, wounded, and unable to escape. Let us seek her nest ; 
and here, close at hand, in a hollow, and sheltered by two tufts of 
heath, we find it. Well, the curlew is not one of the art-workers of 
