THE CUELEW. 
195 
The cry of the curlew is by far the loudest uttered by any 
of our graUatorial birds. It will perhaps be scarcely credited 
that it can be heard at the distance of nearly three English miles ; 
yeb under peculiar circumstances,, such is the case. I have heard 
it so on calm moonlight nights,, when, at the extremity of the bay 
at Holywood warren, awaiting the flight of these birds from Har- 
rison^’s Bay and Conswater, whence the flowing tide would drive 
them from particular banks respectively about two and three 
miles distant from my station. The caU from the first-named 
locality sounded quite near, and from the latter distinct, though 
much more faintly ; the state of the tide at the time evincing, 
with certainty, that all the banks, except the two alluded to, were 
covered too deeply with water for the birds to be on them. The 
shore-shooters are well aware of this circumstance.^ 
As remarked in St. John'’s ^ Egypt — ^^The Arabs are an 
inventive and poetical people. They know, after their fashion, 
how to explain everything. Even the cry of the curlew, which 
they call Karrawan, has, they say, a solemn meaning when trans- 
lated into human language. Impressed with a due sense of the 
power and majesty of the Creator, this bird, in its solitary flight 
among the rocks, thus addresses the Deity : — Lah^ lak, lak, la 
shariah Kalak, fiT mulk ; that is, To thee, to thee, to thee 
belongs the sovereignty of the world, without partner or com- 
panion (vol. i. p. 314.) 
* Respecting the distance from which we may hear birds, the Rev. L. Jenyns 
remarks: — “I have at such times [the air still and frosty] distinctly heard two 
cocks calling to one another from two different homesteads, situate a mile and a half 
or more apart.” (Observations in Nat. Hist., p. 170.) 
Mr. Blackwall, too, has observed that the hooting of the tawny owl may be heard 
to the distance of a mile, or even two miles, under very favourable circumstances. 
(Ann. Nat. Hist., vol. xv. p. 167.) 
