639 

 BAR-TAILED GODWIT. 



Limosa lapponica (L.). 



Autumn or winter visitant to the coast, arriving in great numbers 

 in August and September ; many remain throughout winter. Occurs 

 regularly on the spring passage northward in May. Is occasionally 

 observed inland. 



Pennant made the earliest allusion to this species in 

 Yorkshire, under the title of " Scolopax lapponica — ^The Red 

 Godwit. We have known it to have been shot near Hull." 

 (Pennant's " British Zoology," 1766, Vol. ii. p. 353.) 



Thomas Allis, 1844, wrote : — 



Limosa rufa. — Bar-tailed Godwit — F. O. Morris mentions one 

 shot near Doncaster ; Dr. Farrar mentions one shot at Haw Park, 

 Walton, in March 1833, and another at Hawksworth Hall, near Otley, 

 in May 1839 ; H. Chapman has had it from the neighbourhood of 

 York ; A. Strickland says it is not uncommon on the sands in winter, 

 in brown plumage, and is in spring at times shot, assuming the red 

 plumage, but they go inland to breed.* 



Until within comparatively recent years the Bar-tailed 

 Godwit was considered by the chief authors on works on 

 British ornithology to be a bird of double passage only, con- 

 tinuing its southward journey with the approach of winter, 

 but for many years I have known it as one of the species 

 which, like the Knot and Sanderling, remain on the coast 

 throughout the drear months. 



It is certainly a spring and autumn migrant, very abundant 

 m some seasons at the latter period ; the advance guards of 

 the migratory flocks are old birds in the red plumage of summer, 

 and odd individuals have occurred as early as 12th July ; 

 while on ist August 1879 I ^^^ two, and secured one in perfect 

 summer dress. 



Early in August the young birds appear in flocks, with 

 a few adults, and continue to arrive from then up to the 



• Strickland probably did not intend it to be inferred that this 

 species bred in this country, though at one time the Black-tailed Godwit 

 was a nesting bird in Yorkshire. 



