THE BLACK-TAILED GODWIT 



{limosa melanura) 



nnHE Black - tailed God wit is another species 

 -*- which the exercise of a little ordinary care 

 and common sense might have preserved. It seems 

 almost incredible that in former days this bird 

 was so common in East Anglia that it was regularly 

 fattened for the table, and held in as much as or 

 even greater estimation than the Woodcock is in 

 our own. Its chief strongholds in Britain, so far 

 as we possess any records, were in the fens of 

 Lincolnshire and Norfolk and in the Isle of Ely. 

 During the first quarter of the present century the 

 Black-tailed Godwit bred commonly in the Fens ; 

 it ceased to do so about the year 1829, but a nest 

 was found in Norfolk as recently as 1847. This 

 Godwit still continues to pass over the British 

 Islands in spring and autumn on its way to 

 breeding-grounds farther north, but the stock of 



indigenous birds is gone, and we may safely 



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