GOLDCREST 367 



dominance of bright bay or chestnut, rendering the wearer a very- 

 beautiful object. The Black-tailed Godwit, though varying a good 

 deal in size, is constantly larger than the Bar-tailed, and especially 



GoDWiT. (After Swainson.) 



longer in the legs. The species may be further distinguished by 

 the former having the proximal third of the tail-quills pure white, 

 and the distal two-thirds black, with a narrow white margin, while 

 the latter has the same feathers barred with black and white alter- 

 nately for nearly their whole length. 



America possesses two species of the genus, the very large 

 Marbled Godwit or Marlin, L. fedoa, easily recognized by its size 

 and the buff colour of its axillaries, and the smaller Hudsonian 

 Godwit, L. hudsonica, which has its axillaries of a deep black. This 

 last, though less numerous than its congener, seems to range over 

 the whole of the continent, breeding in the extreme north, while it 

 has been obtained also in the Strait of Magellan and the Falkland 

 Islands. The first seems not to go further southward than the 

 Antilles and the Isthmus of Panama. 



From Asia, or at least its eastern part, two species have been 

 described. One of them, L. melamtroides, differs only from L. belgica 

 in its smaller size, and is believed to breed in Amurland, wintering 

 in the islands of the Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia. The 

 other, L. uropygialis, is closely allied to and often mistaken for L. 

 lapponica, from which it chiefly differs by having the rump barred 

 like the tail. This was found breeding in the extreme north of 

 Siberia by Dr. von Middendorff, and ranges to Australia, Avhence it 

 was first described by Mr. Gould. 



GOLDCREST, a commonly used abbreviation of Golden-crested 

 (also called Golden-crowned) Wren, the Motadlla regidus of Linnaeus, 

 and liegiduR cridatus of most modern ornithologists. This species 

 is the type of a small genus ^ generally placed among the Sylviidai 

 or true Warblers, but by certain Avriters it is referred to the 

 Paridx (Titmouse). That the Begnli possess many of the habits 

 and actions of the latter is undeniable, but on the other hand they 

 are not known to differ in any important points of organization or 

 appearance from the former — the chief distinction being that the 



^ Tlie name Kinglet, a literal rendering of Regulus, has been applied to the 

 birds of this group in many books, but cannot be said to have become in this 

 sense an English word. 



