BLACK-TAILED GODWTT. 165 



of the Wild Duck and Shoveller, and got a nest of Garganey from a boy. 

 The Great Snipe was only seen once or twice, but Ruffs were extremely 

 abundant. Of neither of these birds did we obtain eggs ourselves, but old 

 Jacob, the planter, gave us three Ruffes eggs which a boy had brought 

 in to him. Redshanks and Dunlins were common enough, and we took 

 several nests of the latter and one of the former with three eggs. At last 

 we came upon several pairs of Black-tailed God wits, whose loud cries 

 betrayed the vicinity of their nests or young. Once or twice we heard 

 their call-note, from which the name Godwit is derived, and which sounds 

 like tyil-it ; but the alarm- note — a loud, clear, rich tyii, ty'd — was almost 

 incessant as they hovered over our heads, with their feet projecting beyond 

 their broad tails. As we crossed and recrossed the ground in every direction, 

 they watched us with the greatest anxiety, sometimes flying away for a 

 short time, but always reappearing again with renewed cries. In two 

 places we spent at least an hour in a fruitless search for the eggs, and 

 finally we came to the conclusion that they had young, and gave up the 

 attempt. After spending some time in exploring the south shore of the 

 fjord, we crossed to the north shore as a sort of forlorn hope. Here a 

 small colony of Black-headed Gulls revived our drooping spirits, and then, 

 by pure accident, I stumbled upon the nest of a Black-tailed Godwit. It 

 was a mere hollow in the short coarse herbage, on the dry part of the 

 ground, somewhat deep, and lined with a handful of dry grass. The eggs, 

 four in number, were slightly incubated ; but we did not see a trace of the 

 parent birds. A few yards from this nest a Shoveller was sitting on nine 

 eggs, considerably incubated. 



The eggs of the Black -tailed Godwit are four in number when the full 

 complement is deposited, olive-brown or pale olive-green in ground-colour, 

 indistinctly blotched and spotted with darker olive-brown, and with under- 

 lying markings of greyish brown and pale inky grey. On some eggs the 

 markings are very pale and ill-defined. They are pear-shaped, and vary in 

 length from 2*2 to 2"05 inch, and in breadth from 1*52 to 1'45 inch. It 

 is impossible to give any reliable points of distinction between the eggs of 

 this Godwit and those of the Bar-tailed Godwit, which require the most 

 careful identification. Only one brood is reared in the year. When the 

 young are hatched the old birds become much tamer, and approach within 

 a few feet of the intruder. It is said that they attack any predaceous bird 

 that may chance to put in an appearance on their breeding-grounds. 



Soon after the young are strong on the wing, the return migration 

 begins ; the young are the first to leave, followed by their parents. In 

 winter this Godwit appears sooner to sufier from any protracted frost than 

 its congener. On the meadows between Rotterdam and Leyden the Black - 

 tailed Godwit is common, and may often be seen from the railway-train. 

 On the outskirts of the latter town it is equally abundant, and may be seen 



