THE COMMON CURLEW 273 
summer, from which fact the inference is fairly drawn that they 
do not breed in this country. Their habits differ in no material 
respects from the other seaside Waders, with whom they frequently 
mingle while feeding, not, seemingly, for the sake of good fellowship, 
but attracted by a motive common to all, that of picking up food 
wherever an abundance is to be met with. Their note is a loud, 
shrill cry, often uttered while on the wing. The female is much 
larger than the male. 
This bird is sometimes called the Sea Woodcock. Its flesh is 
good eating, but is far inferior in flavour to that of the true 
Woodcock. 
THE BLACK-TAILED GODWIT 
LIMOSA BELGICA 
Beak nearly straight ; middle claw long and serrated ; upper parts ash-brown 
the shafts of the feathers somewhat deeper ; breast and adjacent parts 
greyish white; tail black, the base, and the tips of the two middle 
feathers, white ; beak orange at the base, black at the point; feet dusky. 
Summer—much of the plumage tinged with red. Length seventeen and 
a half inches. Eggs deep olive, spotted with light brown. 
Tuis birdjis, in outward appearance, mainly distinguished from the 
preceding by having two-thirds of the tail black, instead of being 
barred throughout with white and black. Like its congener, it is 
most frequently seen in autumn and spring, while on the way to 
and from its breeding-ground in the north; but it does not stay 
with us through winter, though occasionally a few pairs used to 
remain in the fen-countries to breed. It is by far the less common 
of the two, and seems to be getting annually more and more rare. 
Its habits, as far as they have been observed, approach those of 
the other Scolopacide. In its flight it resembles the Redshank. 
Its note is a wild screaming whistle, which it utters while on the 
wing. It builds its nest in swamps, among rushes and sedges, 
simply collecting a few grasses and roots into any convenient hole, 
and there it lays four eggs. 
THE COMMON CURLEW 
NUMENIUS ARQUATA 
General plumage reddish ash, mottled with dusky spots; belly white, with 
longitudinal dusky spots; feathers of the back and scapulars black, 
bordered with rust-red; tail white, with dark brown transverse bars ; 
upper mandible dusky; lower, flesh-colour; irides brown; feet bluish 
grey. Length varying from twenty-two to twenty-eight inches, Eggs 
olive-green, blotched and spotted with brown and dark green. 
DwELLers by the seaside —especially where the tide retires to a 
great distance leaving a wide expanse of muddy sand, or on the 
B.B, c) 
