common to all birds of its family, is especially its most remarkable feature. Its plumage above is of a drab colour, streaked and mottled with very dark brown; beneath it is white, while the flight-quills are of a brownish black.
Nearly allied to the curlew, but smaller and with a more northern range, is the whimbrel (N. phaeopus), called in some parts jack-curlew, from its small size; May-fowl, from the month in which it usually arrives; and titterel, from one of its cries.[1] This so much resembles the former in habit and appearance that no further details need be given of it. In the countries bordering on the Mediterranean occurs a third species (N. tenuirostris). Some fifteen other species, or more, have been described, but it is probable that this number is too great. The genus Numenius is almost cosmopolitan. In North America three very easily recognized species are found—the first (N. longirostris) closely agreeing with the European curlew, but larger and with a longer bill; the second (N. hudsonicus) representing the British whimbrel; and the third (N. borealis), which has several times found its way to Britain, very much less in size—indeed the smallest of the genus. All these essentially agree with the species of the Old World in habit; but it is remarkable that the American birds can be easily distinguished by the rufous colouring of their axillary feathers—a feature which is also presented by the American godwits (Limosa).
2. The curlew of inlanders, or stone-curlew—called also, by some writers, from its stronghold in England, the Norfolk plover, and sometimes the thick-knee—is usually classed among the Charadriidae, but it offers several remarkable differences from the more normal plovers. It is the Charadrius oedicnemus of Linnaeus, the C. scolopax of Sam. Gottl. Gmelin, and the Oedicnemus crepitans of K. J. Temminck. With much the same cry as that of the Numenii, only uttered in a far sweeter tone, it is as fully entitled to the name of curlew as the bird most commonly so called. In England it is almost solely a summer visitor, though an example will occasionally linger throughout a mild winter; and is one of the few birds whose distribution is affected by geological formation, since it is nearly limited to the chalk-country—the open spaces of which it haunts, and its numbers have of late years been sensibly diminished by their inclosure. The most barren spots in these districts, even where but a superficial coating of light sand and a thin growth of turf scarcely hide the chalk below, supply its needs; though at night (and it chiefly feeds by night) it resorts to moister and more fertile places. Its food consists of snails, coleopterous insects, and earth-worms, but larger prey, as a mouse or a frog, is not rejected. Without making the slightest attempt at a nest, it lays its two eggs on a level spot, a bare fallow being often chosen. These are not very large, and in colour so closely resemble the sandy, flint-strewn surface that their detection except by a practised eye is difficult. The bird, too, trusts much to its own drab colouring to elude observation, and, on being disturbed, will frequently run for a considerable distance and then squat with outstretched neck so as to become almost invisible. In such a case it may be closely approached, and its large golden eye, if it do not pass for a tuft of yellow lichen, is perhaps the first thing that strikes the searcher. As autumn advances the stone-curlew gathers in large flocks, and then is as wary as its namesake. Towards October these take their departure, and their survivors return, often with wonderful constancy, to their beloved haunts. In size this species exceeds any other European plover, and looks even still larger than it is. The bill is short, blunt, and stout; the head large, broad, and flat at the top; the wings and legs long—the latter presenting the peculiarity of a singular enlargement of the upper part of the tarsus, whence the names Oedicnemus and Thick-knee have been conferred. The toes are short and fleshy, and the hind-toe is wanting. This bird seems to have been an especial favourite with Gilbert White, in whose classical writings mention of it is often made. Its range extends to North Africa and India. Five other species of Oedicnemus from Africa have also been described as distinct. Australia possesses a very distinct species (O. grallarius), and the genus has two members in the Neotropical Region (O. bistriatus and O. superciliaris). An exaggerated form of Oedicnemus is found in Aesacus, of which two species have been described, one (A. recurvirostris) from the Indian, and the other (A. magnirostris) from the northern parts of the Australian region. (A. N.)
CURLING, THOMAS BLIZARD (1811–1888), British surgeon, was born in London in 1811. Through his uncle, Sir William Blizard, he became assistant-surgeon to the London hospital in 1833, becoming full surgeon in 1849. After filling other important posts in the College of Surgeons, he was appointed president in 1873. In 1843 he won the Jacksonian prize for his investigations on tetanus; and he became famous for his skill in treating diseases of the testes and rectum, his published works on which went through many editions. He died on the 4th of March 1888.
CURLING, a game in which the players throw large rounded
stones upon a rink or channel of ice, towards a mark called the
tee. Where the game originated is not precisely known; but it
has been popular in Scotland for three centuries at least. Some
writers, looking to the name and technical terms of the game,
trace its invention to the Netherlands; thus “curl” may have
been derived from the Ger. kurzweil, a game; “tee” from the
Teutonic tighen, to point out; “bonspiel,” a district curling
competition, from the Belgic bonne, a district, and spel, play;
the further supposition that “rink” is merely a modification of
the Saxon hrink, a strong man, seems scarcely tenable. Curling
is called “kuting” in some parts of Lanarkshire and Ayrshire,
and very much resembles quoiting on the ice, so that the name
may have some connexion with the Dutch coete, a quoit; while
Cornelis Kiliaan (1528–1607) in his Teutonic Dictionary gives
the term khuyten as meaning a pastime in which large globes of
stone like the quoit or discus are thrown upon ice. Possibly
some of the Flemish merchants who settled in Scotland towards
the close of the 16th century may have brought the game to the
country. Unfortunately, however, for the theory that assigns
to it a far-away origin, we find no early mention of it in the
literature of the continent; while Camden, when describing the
Orkney Islands in 1607, tells us that one of them supplies “plenty
of excellent stones for the game called curling”; and incidental
references to it as a game played in Scotland are made by several
authors during the first half of the same century.
If the game be not indigenous to Scotland it certainly owes its development to that country, and in the course of time it has come to be the national sport. It was played at first with very rude engines—random whin boulders fashioned by nature alone, or misshapen granite blocks, bored through to let in the thumb of the player, having been the primitive channel stones. In course of years the rough block was superseded by a symmetrical object usually made of whinstone or granite, beautifully rounded, brilliantly polished, and supplied with a convenient handle.
Although curling boasts a literature of its own and songs innumerable, yet it has received but the scantiest notice from such important Scottish writers as Scott and Burns, or from contemporary literature in general. In 1834 an “Amateur Curling Club of Scotland” was formed, but this “mutual admiration amateur society came to nothing, as might be expected.” Far more businesslike were the methods of the men who set afoot the “Grand Caledonian Curling Club,” which began its existence on the 15th of November 1838, and which, under its present title of “The Royal Caledonian Curling Club,” is regarded in all parts of the world as the mother-club and legislative body, even in Canada, where, however, curling conditions differ widely from those of Scotland; devotion to the mother-club does not by any means imply submission. Starting with 28 allied clubs the Royal Club grew so rapidly that there were 500 such in 1880 and 720 in 1903. It was under the auspices of the Royal Caledonian that a body of Scottish curlers visited Canada and the United States in the winter of 1902–1903, and, while a slight margin of victory remained with the home players under their own climatic conditions,
- ↑ The name spowe (cf. Icelandic Spói) also seems to have been anciently given to this bird (see Stevenson’s Birds of Norfolk, ii. 201).
