BAR-TAILED GODWIT. 253 



are esteemed a great delicacy, and sell for half-a-crown 

 or five shiUings a piece." In the Lord North Accounts, 

 is a single entry of two " yerwhelps " supplied at two 

 shillings. 



LIMOSA RTTFA, Temminck. 

 BAE-TAILED GODWIT. 



Whilst the previous species has become scarce, even 

 as a migrant, the Bar-tailed Godwit may be reckoned 

 as the type of our migratory waders. Regular, and in 

 favourable seasons abundant, on its spring and autumn 

 passage, there still seems no reason to suppose that this 

 species was at any time a resident in our marshes; 

 though doubtless a still more numerous visitant in 

 former days, when the country presented far greater 

 attractions, and the persecutions of local gunners had 

 not as yet thinned their ranks, or warned them to ''pass 

 on" quickly to their distant homes. 



In spring a few specimens are occasionally obtained as 

 early as the first or second week in April, either pioneers 

 of the main body of migrants, or birds which have 

 scarcely left our shores throughout the winter ; yet even 

 amongst these, I have occasionally noticed one or two 

 males which had assumed the rich red of their breeding 

 plumage. It is not, however, till the month of May 

 that the northward movement takes place in earnest, 

 and so constant is the date of their vernal passage, that 

 the 12th of May is known as " Godwit day " to the 

 Breydon gunners. Such, at least, from the observations 

 of many seasons, is the average time of their appearance, 

 though from the commencement of that month up to 

 the 20th or 21st examples are met with in every variety 

 of plumage, as flight foUows flight, impelled by instinc- 



