BAR-TAILED GODWIT. 159 



arrival it is so unsuspicious of danger, especially if only one or two birds 

 are together, that it may often be approached within a few yards. Its 

 actions on the mud are very Curlew-like ; and it often stands quite still 

 for a long time, as if lost in thought. When disturbed it flies in a mode- 

 rately quick manner, usually uttering an alarm-note as it rises. Before 

 alighting again it often skims along with outspread wings for some dis- 

 tance. In all its habits it is a complete Totaims, Avalking sedately, and but 

 rarely running — often wading into deep water, but only attempting to swim 

 or dive when wounded. Its call-note resembles the syllables hja, kijd, kyd. 

 The alarm-note at the nest has not been described ; but in the pairing- 

 season it has a trill like most other Sandpipers. 



The food of the Bar-tailed Godwit in autumn and winter consists of 

 sand-worms, crustaceans, insects, small shells, and other minute marine 

 animals. Its feeding-time commences generally at high water, as soon as 

 it can get on the mud, and it gradually folloAVS the retreating tide, and is 

 then driven back again. It often reposes on sand-banks and mud-flats at 

 the mouths of rivers, congregating with Plovers, Dunlins, Knots, and 

 other wading birds. In summer its food consists more or less of insects, 

 worms, &c., which it obtains in its muddy haunts. 



But little is known respecting the breeding-habits of the Bar-tailed 

 Godwit. It rears its young on the vast northern moors and the swampy 

 portions of the Arctic tundra. WoUey, who obtained the eggs of this bird 

 in 1858, informed Hewitson that it bred in marshes, chiefly near to moun- 

 tains, and that its nest was very difiicult to find. Its breeding-season is 

 at the end of May or early in June. The eggs WoUey obtained in Finland 

 were taken on the 29th of May. The nest is very slight, a little dry grass 

 or other herbage placed in a depression in the ground, and the eggs are 

 four in number. They are pale or dark olive-green in ground-colour, 

 spotted and blotched with darker brown and with underlying markings of 

 grey. Two eggs, supposed to be those of this bird, from the neighbour- 

 hood of Archangel, and taken on the 1st of June, 1880, are very boldly 

 and handsomely blotched with rich brown, and one specimen is streaked 

 with very dark brown on the large end. They vary in length from 2 39 

 to 2"05 inch, and in breadth fi'om 1*5 to 1*43 inch. It is impossible to 

 give any character by which the eggs of this bird may be distinguished 

 from those of the much commoner Black-tailed Godwit, nor are they with 

 certainty to be distinguished from eggs of Buffon^s Skua. Of the actions 

 of the birds at the nest, and similar interesting particulars concerning this 

 bird's nidification, nothing has been recorded. 



Bar-tailed Godwits are often caught in the flight-nets which are spread 

 over the enormous mud-flats of the Lincolnshire coast. These birds 

 migrate at night, and appear to fly at no great height. Dixon has known 

 them to be most absurdly tame on this coast, often allowing him to 



