COMMON CURLEW. 
274 
dawn in motion with the birds — we believe the 
males — rising aloft with a slow ascent, sailing 
along, and uttering their shrill quivering whistle 
peculiar to this season ; or both will meet any 
stranger with noisy screams, beating at him, and 
approaching within a few yards. If they have been 
annoyed or fired at, their usual wariness overcomes 
their other instincts, and, although they may ap- 
proach with the same screams, they are careful to 
keep out of harm’s way, and will retire to some 
eminence, whence, when approached, they will run 
and skulk, as if to decoy away the intruder. The 
nest is placed on some dry part of the moor or tuft 
in the moss ; w r e have found them also in a furrow 
of fallow land, or of newly sown oats ; and it is 
simply a hollow, smoothed by the bird, having in 
some instances a few grasses, or other leaves lining 
the bottom. In some districts the young are sought 
after about the time they are able to fly, and are 
considered excellent eating. We have occasionally 
shot them before the pointers, so late as the 12th of 
August ; these were, however, late broods, as about 
this period, or very soon after, they have entirely left 
the moors, and returned to the sea shores, whence, 
during the influx of the tide, they travel inland, 
and rest in the pastures or meadows, regularly re- 
turning to feed with the ebbing waters. Though 
at a distance, they seem instinctively to know the 
proper time, and we have often observed them 
commencing to return almost to a minute, the first 
birds appearing when certain marks first began to 
