Page:BirdWatchingSelous.djvu/172

 an ibis, of Egypt and the South, and is likewise the very incarnation of grey skies, of mist and morass. So strangely can contradictions be reconciled in the mind, or rather so well and impartially can we grasp two aspects of a thing when neither concerns us personally.

When they stand or walk slowly and sedately these curlews hold their long, slender necks very erect, and it is this, with the beak, that gives them their ibis-like character. When they run they lower the neck, and the quicker they go the lower do they hold it. In taking flight they sometimes make a few quick running steps with raised body, as though launching themselves on the air; but at other times they will rise from where they stand without this preliminary. In flight they may be called conspicuous, at anyrateany rate [sic] by contrast with the wonderful manner in which they disappear simply—"softly and silently vanish away"—when on the ground. This is by reason of their colouring, which on all the upper surface of the body and the outside of the wings is of a soft, mottled brown, which blends wonderfully with, or, rather, seems to become absorbed into the general surroundings of moor and peat-bog, so that they never catch the eye, and are simply gone the instant this is taken off them. But the plumage of the under surface of the body and of the inside of the wings is much lighter, and this becomes visible as the bird rises (as with the redshank), and alternates with the other as it flies around. It is thus—round and round in a wide circle—that a pair of them will keep flying when disturbed in their breeding-haunts. But though each bird is equally disturbed and anxious, and