The curlew in Scotland is known as the "whaup," and where the whaups gather we naturally find a Whaup's Nest, a charming designation for this the eighth hole. The situation of the green on a gently rising slope; from which we look back on a wee loch in the valley below, suggests at once that here the whaup or curlew might be expected to find - as it certainly does - the secluded sanctuary desirable. Golfers have not yet driven the whaup from its home nor are they likely to do so. Here we are "far across the muir" as the old song "Kate Dalrymple" has it -

In a wee cot hoose, far across the muir,

Where peeweeps, plovers and whaups cry dreary,

There lived an auld maid for mony lang years, Wham ne'er a wooer did e'er ca' dearie.

A curiously haunting sound is the call of the curlew when the grey dusk gathers, and it is told of a Scot on the southern side of the Border that on listening to the melodious and full-throated song of the nightingale, he turned to his English friends and declared "It's a' very guid, but I widna' gie the wheeple o' a whaup for a' the nichtingales that ever sang."

The bird life at Glen-eagles, by the way, is of great interest to naturalists - and also to that feathered freebooter the sparrow hawk! The falconry of old times is no longer the sport of the Gleneagles gallants, however, the flight of the golf ball counting for more than the flight and swoop of the hawk on the wing.