194 
SCOLOPACIDtE. 
although the nights were dark. They were likewise heard on the 
22nd of the same month in 1843, and on the 13th in 1844 : on 
the latter occasion, from midnight until four o^ clock in the morn- 
ing ; on the next evening they commenced so early as soon after 
nine o^ clock. In the following year, they first attracted attention 
in this manner, on the 28th of February. A similar habit pre- 
vails during the months of July and August. These flights are 
taken in dark as well as moonlight nights, and in every state of 
the tide. In the silence of a fine starry night, when nought else 
is heard, the cry of the curlew, consisting both of the simple and 
the long-drawn tremulous whistle, uttered from a great height in 
the air, has a very fine effect. The calling and answering of these 
birds by night, is often heard over the city of Dublin."^ 
Name, -Whaap is, in Ireland, as elsewhere, the name be- 
stowed on tliis bird by the peasantry, — and I have always considered, 
on account of its being the nearest approach in sound to the alarm- 
cry of the bird. Mr. Yarrell, however, observes, on this subject. 
Throughout Scotland and its isles, the curlew is called a whaap, 
or whaup, which, in JamiesoAs Scottish Dictionary, is said to be 
a name for a goblin, supposed to go about under the eaves of 
houses after night-fall, having a long beak. Sir Walter Scott 
refers to this supposed connexion of a long beak with a suspicious 
character in his ‘'Black Dwarf'’ (chap, ii.), in a dialogue between 
Hobbie Elliott and Earns-cliff, in the evening on Mucklestane 
Moor : the former says, ^ What need I care for the Mucklestane 
Moor ony mair than ye do yoursel, Earns-cliff ? to be sure they 
say there^’s a sort o^ worricows and lang-nebbit things about the 
land, but what need I care for them and this enables us to 
understand the fag end of a highlander’s prayer, to be saved harm- 
less ‘'from witches, warlocks, and aw lang-nebbed things.'”'’ f I 
should, however, imagine it quite as probable that the ^Mang- 
nebbit things” derived the honour of their euphonious patronymic, 
Whaap, from the curlew, as the bird does its more polite name, 
from another of its calls. 
* Mr. R. Ball. 
t Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 512. 
