308 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Winter. — During the 'winter months these godwits either haunt the 

 seashore, displaying special preference for low-lying coasts where 

 extensive areas of mud flats are exposed at low tide, or else are to be 

 found where there are large marshes along the edges of lakes, and less 

 frequently by the banks of rivers. On the open coasts and the Span- 

 ish marismas they are subject to a good deal of persecution from the 

 larger falcons, especially the peregrine, which greatly appreciates 

 them as an article of diet. Lord Lilford describes the great flocks of 

 these godwits on the lower reaches of the Guadalquiver as spreading 

 out into long lines or gathering into dense masses like starlings or 

 dunlins, when trying to avoid the attentions of their long-winged 

 enemies. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Breeding range. — In Iceland it is very local, being confined to the 

 low-lying country in the southwest (Arnes and Rangarvalla-Sysla), 

 where it breeds in fair numbers; Faroes (only once definitely 

 recorded) ; formerly in the British Isles from Yorkshire to Norfolk, 

 but extinct as a breeding species since 1847, unless a possible Lincoln- 

 shire record for 1885 is accepted ; Belgium, Holland, and its islands, 

 West Jutland, North Germany, locally in South Sweden, Hungary, 

 Poland, the Baltic Republics (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) ; in 

 Russia, according to Buturlin, it breeds in the governments of St. 

 Petersburg (Leningrad), Moscow, Riazan, on the Volga south to the 

 mouth of the Kama, in the Ufa and Perm governments north to 60° 

 N. In western Asia it nests in the Tobolsk government. The Irtysh 

 Valley, Baraba Steppe, and locally in Turkestan, but the exact limits 

 of this and the smaller eastern race (L. I. melanuroides Gould) are 

 not yet defined. 



Winter range. — The main winter quarters of this species are in the 

 Mediterranean region, the coasts of North Africa, and the Nile Val- 

 ley, the marshes of Iraq and the Indian Peninsula east of Burma. It 

 has been recorded from the Azores, Maderia, and the Canaries; is 

 common in suitable localities along the North African littoral from 

 Morocco through Algeria and Tunisia to Egypt, and has been 

 recorded from the Egyptian Sudan, Kordofan, and Abyssinia, and 

 exceptionally as far South as Natal. In Asia it ranges to the Persian 

 Gulf, the Indian Peninsular, but scarce in the south, Ceylon, Burma, 

 etc., while the eastern race visits the islands of Malaysia and ranges 

 to Australia. 



Spring migration. — The northward movement from Morocco takes 

 place in February and March and it appears in Andalusia in Febru- 

 ary (late date April 6). In Corsica it has been noted as late as April 

 23 and on passage, Malta, March 24-25. In Tunisia it is most plenti- 

 ful in February and March, and does not stay in Egypt after March 



