176 WADING BIRDS. 



rufous ; beneath chestnut, spotted and barred with dusky. Win- 

 ter dress ashy-brown, beneath on the breast grey, below white. 



The Hudsonian, or American Black-Tailed Godwit, 

 though abundant in the barren grounds near the Arctic 

 sea, where it breeds, is an uncommon visiter in the eastern 

 and Middle States of the Union ; although, from all ana- 

 logy, and the impossibility of the species subsisting through 

 the winters of its natal regions, we are certain that the whole 

 retire into mild climates to pass the winter. They probably, 

 like some other birds of the same countries, retire south- 

 ward by an inland route, or even pass the autumn on the 

 shores of the North- Western coast of the continent ; be this 

 as it may, the present bird is among our greatest rarities ; 

 as I have seldom seen more than two or three pair in the 

 course of the season ; these are found on the neighboring 

 coast of the Bay, and called by the market people of Bos- 

 ton, Goose-Birds, I obtained a solitary pair of these strag- 

 glers about the 8th of September ; they were very fat and 

 well flavored, scarcely distinguishable, in this respect, from 

 the Curlew, and appeared to have been feeding on some 

 Ulvaox other vegetable substance. Several pair of young and 

 old birds were brought to market this year, (1833), from the 

 6th to the 30th of the same month. An individual, now in 

 the Philadelphia Museum, was shot also, near the coast of 

 Cape May, in New Jersey. They sometimes associate 

 with the Plovers, and descending to the marshes and the 

 strand, feed upon minute shell-fish, shrimps, and the roots 

 of the Zostera. According to Richardson, they frequent 

 boo-o-y lakes; like the preceding, probing the spliagnum and 

 mud in quest of insects, and minute shell-fish. Its manners 

 are similar to those of the L. fedoa, and in most respects it 

 makes an approach to the Black-Tailed species of Europe ; 

 it is, however, somewhat larger, and readily contradis- 

 tinguished. The L. melanura frequently utters a low, plain- 



