826 S YS TEMA TIC S YNOPSIS. — LIMICOL.E. 



leaving rufous chiefly as scallops and tips of the feathers. This rufous very variable in 

 intensity ; usually paler on upper than on under parts, and strongest under wings ; in young 

 birds nearly or quite plain, in old ones more or less barred vi'ith dusky on the breast and sides. 

 Primarifs rufous, successively darkening from last to first, outer vrebs and ends of the few outer 

 ones blackish, shaft of 1st white. Bill livid flesh-colored, blackish on about terminal third; 

 legs ashy-blackish. Largest of the genus: length 16.00-22.00 inches; extent 30.00-40.00; 

 wing somewhere about 9.00; tail 3.00-4.00; bill 3.50-5..i0, generally about 4.00; tarsus 3.00, 

 more or less; middle toe and claw 1.50; few birds vary more in size. Sexes not distinguish- 

 able, but 9 averaging decidedly larger than the $ ; birds at and near the extremes here given 

 are ? , and conversely. There is no such seasonal difiierenee of plumage as is shown by all the 

 other Godwits. This is the largest of the "bay-birds" excepting the Long-billed Curlew; 

 conspicuous by its size and reddish color among waders that throng shores and muddy or sandy 

 bars of bays and estuaries during migrations. Temperate North America ; winters southerly to 

 Cuba and Central America ; breeds chiefly in the upper Mississippi and eastern Missouri regions, 

 in. Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, both Dakotas, and thence to the Saskatchewan plains, Manitoba, 

 and British Columbia ; does not appear to go far N. along the Atlantic coast. Nests anywhere 

 on prairie, not necessarily near water; eggs 3-4, about 2-28 X 1-60, light olive-drab, numer- 

 ously but not very boldly spotted with various umber-brown shades, and the usual stone-gray 

 shell-spots ; they thus difl'er decidedly from those of all other Godwits, and the di9"erence in 

 color is parallel with that C)f the plumage of the birds themselves. The origin and sense of 

 the name "godwit" are involved in an obscurity that has never been cleared up, and may 

 never be. It is apparently a native English word, and has been in use in some form for over 

 400 years ; some of its by-forms are goduuitta, goodwit, and godwin. The derivation from 

 Anglo-Saxon god, good, and toiht, a vi'ight or creature, is factitious, — too easy to be true ; 

 and that which makes it "God's wit," is mere juggling with words, though it is soberly trans- 

 lated in Latin Dei ingenium by Casaubon, 1611. Almost equally beside the mark is the at- 

 tempt to derive godwit from goaihead (the English translation of Gr. alyoKtcpaXos, aigokephalos, 

 one of the old names of a European Godwit); for this, while not impossible, is far-fetched, and 

 lacks all the links required to connect the two words. See Century Diet, and Newton's Diet. 

 under the word "goodwit." 



L. lappon'ica bau'eri. (Lat. of Lappland. To one Bauer.) Pacific Bar-tailed God- 

 wit. A subspecies of the common European Bar-tailed Godwit, and closely resembling it, 

 but distinguishable by the general paler and more cinnamon -rufous color of the adults in 

 summer, and especially by the coloration of the rump, upper tail-coverts, and under surface 

 of the wings. In L. laj}ponica proper the rump is white with dusky markings in the central 

 field of most of the feathers; and the upper tail-coverts are white with bruad dusky bars. 

 In L. I. baueri the rump is blackish, with white edgings, the axillaries are white with dis- 

 tinct dusky bars, and the lining of the wings is more extensively mottled with dusky. Adult 

 J" 9 ) in summer: Cinnamon-brown, variegated on the upper parts with dusky, tawny, and 

 whitish ; wing-coverts gray, with dark shaft-streaks and wliitish edgings. Bill light red- 

 dish on the basal half, the rest blackish ; feet blackish; iris brown. In winter: Grayish-brown 

 above, the feathers with dusky shaft-streaks and paler edges; below, whitish, quite pure on 

 the belly, overcast with gray on the throat and breast, there streaked with dusky, the streaks 

 changing on the sides of the breast to bars which extend along the sides of the body to the cris- 

 sum; tail-feathers mostly plain gray, but their coverts, the rump, and the under surfaces of the 

 wings retaining the marks of the sub.'^pecies. Young birds resemble the winter adults, but are 

 more or less buffy, and liave the tail-feathers more like those of the summer adults, the rectrices 

 being blackish with numerous irregular bars and some wliite edging ; rump dusky, and axil- 

 laries barred. Smaller than i. fedoa, about the size of i. hcemastica. Length 14.50-16.00; 

 wing 8.50-9.50; tail 3.00 or more; tarsus 2.00-2.40; bill 3.20 ^-4.40 9 ; the 9 is larger than 



