C U R L E W. 
NUMENIUS ARQUJTA. 
There are few aders or shore-birds so well known all round our coasts as the Curlew ; from north to 
south and from east to west it is numerous — a resident during summer on many inland moors and hill -sides, 
and a visitor, either constant or occasional, to almost every mudflat or harbour of any extent. 
Though there are, as we learn from the pages of the various writers on British birds, several breeding- 
stations of this species in both the southern, midland, and northern counties of England, it is only in the 
Highlands that I have, up to the present, met with a chance of closely observing their habits during the 
summer montlis. In almost every glen I liave explored to the north of the Tay the Curlew may he found 
nesting m larger or smaller numbers. In certain localities, such as tlie sloping hill-sides between the Tay 
and Loch Bannoch, and again in the flat country to the north of Loch Shin in Sutherland, as well as in other 
districts too numerous to mention, these birds frequent the open moorlands. They are, however, hut little 
less plentiful in many parts of the valley of the Spey, where the ground is either well timbered or still littered 
and strewn by the jagged and broken stems of the rapidly decaying iiines uprooted by the terrible gales that 
some years hack swept over this part of the Highlands *. Many of the spots in Strath Spey, where these birds 
resort during summer, are simply clearings of a few acres in the forests ; and it is no uncommon occurrence to 
observe one or both of the pair when startled from the vicinity of their nest, after flying screaming round for 
several minutes, settle at last on the bare and weather-beaten limbs of some old and rotten stump, or even 
at times on the Avaving houghs of a young and vigorous sapling. 
B hen its quarters are seldom invaded and the flocks have been for a time allowed to rest in peace, the 
urlew IS by no means tlie wary and restless bird that so often, on the mudflats of the southern and eastern 
coasts, gives warning of the approaching gunner to all the surrounding fowl. Some years ago I moved a 
punt to a muddy salt-water estuary in the north where the shooting had been strictly preserved for years. I 
slaughter, and while sculling quietly among the unsuspecting lYaders 
cmil 1 ' 01’ four days to gain a greater insight into their habits and actions than 
ould possibly have been acquired by any amount of indiscriminate shooting. The Curlews were perfectly 
ro^rr^''' f ^^^loger, and but one or two would occasionally halt and quietly regard the punt fora few 
Te gWs'"’ ^ ^'^^ks with 
These birds are apparently far less sociable than many of the M^ader family. Though Duck, MTgeon and 
alls were not unfrequently carried by the tide, or even occasionally settled down in close proximity tJ the 
of the destruction may be judged from the account I received from an old native 
reaching commencement of the storm, and within twenty minutes after 
which he had just succeeded in --- 
