BLACK-TAILED GODWIT. 491 



p. 288) an example in full breeding-plumage shot on the 

 Moy, on the west coast, in May, 1863. 



The Black-tailed Godwit has been known to breed in the 

 Fgeroe Islands, and there can be no doubt that it does so in 

 Iceland, to which it is an annual spring -visitor, arriving about 

 the end of April, and being known there by the name of 

 Jardra'ka, or 'earth-raker.' In Norway it breeds sparingly, 

 as far north as Finmark, but it does not appear to nest in 

 very high latitudes in either Sweden or Russia ; it is rare 

 near Archangel, nor is it known to range east of the Ural, 

 or to breed above 59° N. lat. It nests in numbers in the 

 marshes of the Vistula, as far south as Lublin ; sparingly in 

 Silesia ; and in suitable localities in Northern Germany, 

 Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, and perhaps in the 

 marshes of Picardy. In other countries of Europe it is a 

 migrant ; its winter quarters commencing at the shores of 

 the Mediterranean, and its range extending to Morocco, the 

 Canaries, and Madeira, on the west, whilst on the east it 

 visits Egypt, and goes up the Nile to Abyssinia. It is said 

 to breed on the shores of the Black Sea, on the Kirghiz 

 steppes near the mouth of the Volga, and in Turkestan ; and 

 during the cool season it visits India, Ceylon, Burmah, the 

 Malay Peninsula, the Eastern Archipelago, Australia and 

 Polynesia, the eastern form, Limosa melanuroides of Gould, 

 being of doubtful distinctness. The Black-tailed Godwit's 

 range would also appear to extend across the more temperate 

 portions of Siberia to the Sea of Okhotsk, Japan, and China : 

 a pair obtained at Shanghai in May by Pere David being in 

 the Paris Museum. 



The Black-tailed Godwit has once been recorded by 

 Fabricius from Greenland, and another is said to have been 

 obtained at Godhaab prior to 1820 (Ibis, 1861, p. 11) ; but 

 in North America the representative of this species is Limosa 

 Jmdsonica, which is smaller, and has black instead of white 

 axillaries. 



Its flight in the breeding- season resembles that of the 

 Redshank, and like that bird it flies round any intruder in 

 the marsh, but in more distant circles and much higher in 



