400 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



This is the only evidence that the red (summer- 

 plumaged) godwits ever pass in spring- along the north- 

 east coast, as they are regularly observed to do in the 

 south and south-east of England. They evidently, with 

 the knots and grey plovers, "take their departure" for 

 the North Sea passage from East Anglia. The only red 

 godwits obtained here are the few, very few, that arrive 

 with the young in August, and which are probably birds 

 that have lost their broods in the far north. 



The adult godwits do not reach this coast till October 

 — six weeks later than the young — and are then in full 

 ash-blue winter-dress. The young, by that date (mid- 

 October), have also moulted from the buff-brown nest- 

 plumage in which they had arrived here in August, into 

 that marbled ash-blue dress already described. 



It remains to add that this godwit, while here, is 

 exclusively marine in its haunts. 



Black-tailed Godwit. — One more word on this 

 species, although, as stated, I have never once met with 

 it at home. Though it breeds in numbers both to east 

 and west of our islands (to wit, in Iceland on the one side ; 

 in Holland and Denmark on the other), yet it rarely 

 appears on British coasts on its regular passage south- 

 wards. By what route does it travel ? 



In southern Spain, we frequently have these godwits 

 in great abundance on our shooting-grounds on the lower 

 Guadalquivir, usually from January to March. They 

 there frequent exclusively the great fresh-water marshes 

 and marismas. In this species, the young of the year 

 exhibit no distinctive intermediate phase of plumage, all 

 those shot in winter being in the same plain grey dress ; 

 though many, before leaving Spain, acquire some portions 

 of the ruddier breeding-plumage. 



