BLACK-TAILED GODWIT. 249 
Horsey, and one or two other places.” Mr. Lubbock 
evidently wrote guardedly as to their extinction, prob- 
ably not having the opportunity at that time to ascertain 
the fact conclusively, but there is no question that 
prior to the date of his “Fauna” this species had 
become, what it is now in this county, an irregular 
migrant only. As far back as 1825,* we have the 
following statement of Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear : 
“Some of these birds used to breed in the marshes of 
Norfolk, and three years since we received the egg of 
this species from Yarmouth. But it is doubtful whether 
they are to be found at present in their former haunts.” 
This doubt I can now satisfactorily clear up, on the 
authority of Mr. Rising, of Horsey, who remembers a 
godwit’s nest in that neighbourhood in the summer 
of 1829, and thinks it quite possible that these birds 
may have bred there some few years later, but for 
the next ten years, being invariably engaged in London 
during the spring months, he had no means of satis- 
fying himself on this point, although greatly interested 
in the subject. If we assume, then, that in yearly 
decreasing numbers they still frequented certain 
favourite localities for a few seasons longer, their 
extinction may, I think, be said to have occurred some- 
where between the years 1829 and 1835. It seems 
probable, however, that during the next twenty years 
a pair or two occasionally returned to their old hauntst 
* In 1824 the late Mr. C. 8. Girdlestone wrote to Mr. Selby, 
“Tam informed the red godwits breed in some marshes ten miles 
from hence [Yarmouth], but I cannot speak to the fact; but this I 
know, we had some here about the 20th of June last season, and 
my bird-stuffer says he has had them in all the summer months, 
and he is a man of veracity.” 
+ As the hen harrier and Montagu’s harrier, now no longer 
resident, are known to do from time to time. 
2K 
