284 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



as soon as he appears, making fully as much fuss at a distance from 

 its nest as near it, and giving no clue as to its exact location. The 

 cries of one pair of birds often attract others, and I have seen as 

 many as eighteen birds flying about at one time in an especially 

 favorable locality. It shows no signs of fear at such times, often 

 alighting on the ground within ten or fifteen yards, standing for 

 an instant with its beautifully marbled wings poised above it, a 

 perfect picture of parental solicitude. Even while they were feeding 

 on the shores of the lakes we could frequently walk up to within a 

 few yards of them. 



Hamilton M. Laing (1913), after describing how a snipe escaped 

 from a duck hawk by diving into some rushes along a creek, tells of 

 a similar trick played by a godwit, as follows : 



In the second chase, the victim marked for death was a marbled godwit. 

 Having often seen these birds swirling about at a dizzy pace and listened to 

 the roar of their long knife wings as they smote the air in a playful descent, 

 I felt assured that when the hawk started after them he would be very much 

 outclassed. Yet in less than half a mile he was among them, had singled a 

 victim and was stooping wickedly. Each time the godwit dodged, he emitted 

 an angry or terrified cry, but the silent pursuer, with never a sign of fatigue, 

 swooped and swooped and wore him down. Each time now the hawk overshot 

 his mark a little less in the turnings. The last resort of the godwit was exactly 

 that of the other snipe, but the former being over the big slough, dropped into 

 the water. I saw the hairbreadth escape and the splash, but whether or not 

 the godwit dived to get away, I could not tell. Some of the sandpipers can 

 dive well, and probably the godwit escaped thus. 



Voice. — The marbled godwit has a great variety of striking and 

 characteristic notes. Its ordinary call note, when only slightly 

 disturbed, sounds like terwhit, terwhit, terwhit, or pert-wurrit, pert- 

 wurrit, or godwit, godwit, godwit, from which its name is probably 

 derived; these notes are all strongly accented on the last syllable, 

 and are uttered almost constantly while the birds are flying about 

 over their breeding grounds. When considerably alarmed these notes 

 are intensified, more rapidly given, and with even more emphasis, 

 kerweek, kerwee-eek, or kerreck, hreck, hreck, kerreck; sometimes 

 they are prolonged into a loud, long-drawn-out scream quack, 

 qua-a-ack, or quoick, quoi-i-ick, somewhat between the loudest quack- 

 ing of an excited duck and the scream of a red-shouldered hawk. 

 There is also a more musical, whistling note, less often heard, sound- 

 ing like the syllables kor-koit or ker-kor-koit, korkoit, the accent 

 being on the kor in each case; this note seems to indicate a more 

 satisfied frame of mind and is much more subdued in tone. All of 

 these notes are subject to great individual variation, and, as the 

 godwits are very noisy birds, we were given ample opportunities to 

 study them, but to write them down in a satisfactory manner is not 

 so easy. 



