184 
SCOLOPACID^. 
THE CEELEW. 
Whaap. 
Nuw,enius arquata, Linn, (sp.) 
Scolopax „ „ 
Is common around tlie coast and in marshy inland dis- 
tricts throughout the year ; ^ 
But much less so in the breeding season than at other times. 
Habits in Belfast Bay, ^c. 
Of all our shore birds this is the most wary and quick- 
sighted,, and of its caution we have interesting evidence almost 
daily, in Belfast Bay. In an undulating sweep of the coast,, little 
more than two miles from the town on the county Down shore, 
named Harrison^s Bay, there is a sand-bank, far out of the range 
of gun-shot from any of the fences that half-encircle it, and 
wholly inaccessible to the fowler from any direction without his 
approach being observed. On this bank, the curlews, before being 
driven so far off their feeding-grounds by the flowing tide as to 
place them witliin gun-shot of any part of the shore, assemble 
day and night, and calling most vociferously to all out-liers, as if 
in dread that a single straggler from their forces, until this time 
widely scattered over the banks, should be left behind. The 
gathering cry having done its duty, they await, in clamorous 
confusion,'’^ the close approach of the tide, which having reached 
them, the greater number, in a large body, followed by nearly all 
the others, in smaller flocks, rise in rapid flight to a considerable 
elevation, and, assuming in due time the form of a wedge in front 
but with the sides of unequal length, wing their way to some 
* In tlie works of Pennant, Bewick, Montagu, and Selby, tlie ciudew is mentioned 
only as frequenting the sea-coast in winter ; but in Ireland the young resort to it as 
soon as they can use their wings. 
