Well, the MacNicol lads were now in a fair way of earning an independent and honourable living, and this sketch of how they had struggled into that position from being mere wastrels-living about the shore like so many curlews-may fitly cease here.
"The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols"
William Black
If you start about half-past two or a quarter to three, you get in amongst them; and the first thing you hear is the whistle, quick, and sharp, and yet far away, of the curlews.
"The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols"
William Black
There were storks just like our European storks, and storks with thick bills ending with a hook, and birds black as velvet, with legs red as blood, and flamingoes and ibises, and white spoon-bills with bills like spoons, and cranes with crowns on their heads, and a multitude of curlews, variegated and gray as mice, flying quickly back and forth as if they were tiny sylvan sprites on long, thin, snipe-like legs.
"In Desert and Wilderness"
Henryk Sienkiewicz