306 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



slightly open wings, tail coverts puffed out and compressed tail 

 pointing upwards, while he presses his breast against the ground as if 

 smoothing off a scrape. Females were noticed to go through this 

 action with appreciably spread tails and after some scratching with 

 the feet. 



Other godwits are alwaj^s pursued with loud outcry, as well as 

 harriers, lapwings, etc., but there is little real fighting between males, 

 and what there is does not seem to be of a particularly vicious type. 

 The opponents face each other and attempt to seize each other's bills, 

 striking with their feet as they descend from the jump. Such spar- 

 ring rarely lasts longer than two or, at the outside, three minutes. 

 In coition the hen stands rigid with horizontal bill, the male standing 

 about a foot behind her " with vibratory wings and spread tail, 

 uttering a clear disyllabic note; then he rises and floats forward 

 above the female with dangling legs and no apparent change in the 

 rate of vibration of his wings. He poses for a moment upon her back, 

 still calling with wings held stiffly upspread and vibrating tail. 

 Immediately after pairing both birds usually continue feeding." 



Nesting. — The breeding grounds of this species vary considerably 

 in character. On the great heaths of Brabant one may come across a 

 pair nesting in short, dry heather ; in the dune country on the Dutch 

 coast they breed among the sea buckthorn and sallow bushes on the 

 sandhills; in Texel most pairs prefer the rectangular patches of rich 

 grass in the "polders" (reclaimed marshes), while in Jutland and 

 Iceland a few pairs breed on the vast expanses of quaking marsh near 

 the coast. Nowhere have Ave met with it more plentifully than in 

 the Dutch polders where I have seen as many as 13 nests with eggs 

 in a single day. All were much alike; a saucerlike hollow in the 

 ground where the grass was thickest and richest, lined with a thick 

 pad of dead grass. 



Eggs. — Here are laid the four p}^riform eggs; five have been 

 recorded once or twice, but the only case of six eggs which is known 

 to me was probably due to two females sharing a nest. As a rule 

 the eggs do not vary much, though sometimes a single egg may be 

 found in which the ground color is pale bluish gray with blotches 

 of deeper ashy gray and a few darker flecks. The great majority 

 of eggs vary in color from greenish or olive green to olive brown and 

 occasionally reddish brown in ground, with blotches or spots of 

 darker brown or olive and a few ashy shell marks. The measure- 

 ments of 100 eggs average 54.71 by 37.37 millimeters; the eggs show- 

 ing the four extremes measure 59.8 by 37.8, 55.3 by 40.7, 48.5 by 37.7, 

 and 55 by 34 millimeters. 



Young. — The only estimate of the incubation period known to me 

 is that of Faber, who gives it as 21 days, but recent evidence on this 



