BLACK-TAILED GODWIT 307 



point is lacking. Both sexes share in the work of incubation, ac- 

 cording to von Wangelin, and this is confirmed by Huxley and 

 Montague, who noticed that in the earlier stages the male spent, at 

 least in one case, three hours on the nest to one by the female. This, 

 however, applies only to the daytime. Hantzsch's statement, that 

 apparently it is carried out by the hen alone, seems to be quite 

 erroneous. The downy young as soon as dried are led out of the 

 nest and are closely attended to by both parents. Only a single 

 brood is reared in the season. 



Plumages. — The molts and plumages are fully described in "A 

 Practical Handbook of British Birds," edited by H. F. Witherby 

 (1920), to which the reader is referred. 



Food. — Naumann (1887) records insect larvae, worms, snails and 

 slugs, fish and frog spawn, tadpoles; also insects (Coleoptera, Orthop- 

 tera, and Odonata). On migration, shells of small marine and fresh- 

 water mollusca have been found in stomachs, also insects, small shore 

 Crustacea (Gammaridae) and the usual sand or gravel. 



Behavior. — The godwits are striking looking birds, readily recog- 

 nizable in summer plumage by the cinnamon pink of the neck and 

 breast and the bold contrast of black and white in the tail, taken in 

 connection with the long legs and straight, slightly upturned bill. 

 The latter character at once distinguishes them from the whimbrels 

 and curlews and their large size marks them out from most of the 

 other European Limicolae. The loud, musical, disyllabic call of the 

 male is also very characteristic. In winter the warm coloring is lost, 

 but the godwits are noisy birds and at this time of year the breeding- 

 note is replaced by a monosyllabic chut. Moreover, their contour 

 when flying overhead is peculiar, for the long legs are carried out 

 beyond the tail and have somewhat the effect of long middle tail 

 feathers not unlike those of the Arctic skua or jaeger. 



Fall. — In the British Isles they begin to appear on our southeast 

 coasts in August, though not in an} 7 numbers as a rule, and have 

 generally left before the end of October. The Iceland birds assemble 

 in flocks at the end of August and leave the island by the beginning 

 of September, while in south Sweden, the Baltic republics, and 

 Poland they desert their breeding grounds in the latter part of July 

 and drift southwards to the North German coast. None stay in Hol- 

 land after September, and gradually they work their way southward 

 to the shores of the Mediterranean, where a certain number winter in 

 favorable localities. The main streams of migration seem to be 

 towards the Straits of Gibraltar on the west side and along the east 

 side of the Balkan Peninsula, but along the west side of the peninsula 

 they are much scarcer. Considerable numbers of west Asiatic birds 

 migrate to the marshes of the Euphrates and winter there, while 

 others pass into India and Burma. 



