944 ADDENDUM SECTION D. 



mania Gould found it abundant at Pittwater, and I have 

 obtained it in the month of November in Ralph's Bay. It 

 affects suitable localities M^here there are tidal mud flats on 

 our coast, and inhabits the Straits Islands as well. It is 

 found in New Zealand, from which colony it departs, accord- 

 ing to Buller, in April ; this district and the Fiji group 

 appear to form the limit of its range to the eastward. 



4. LiMOSA MELANUROIDES. 



(Eastern Black-tailed Godwit). 



Lirnosa melanuroides, Gould, P.Z.S., pt. 14, ]), 84 ; Ramsay, List 

 Austr. B., p. 20, (1888). 



This Godwit, doubtfully distinct from the European and 

 Western Asiatic species L. jEgocephala, Linn., does not 

 appear to range so far south as the last species during its 

 annual migration. Gould records it as having first been 

 seen on the Australian coasts at Port Essington, and 

 apparently described his type from among the specimens sent 

 to him by Mr. Gilbert. Blyth, however, writing in the Ibis, 

 1865, and speaking as if he had examined the type, says he 

 considers it only a small male of L. cegocephala, and that 

 examples of that size may be procured abundantly in Bengal. 

 Lord Tweedale records one individual from Negros (Philip- 

 pines) as L. cegocej^hala, and therefore it is hard for me to 

 define the distribution of the so-called Austrahan species unless 

 I take all the Black-tailed Godwits from Eastern Asiatic coasts 

 and the Malay Archipelago to be one and the same with our 

 bird, and for the purposes of this paper I cannot well do other- 

 wise. It is not improbable, however, that a comparison of 

 an extensive series of examples from Western and Eastern 

 Asia would lead to theu' union. Size is a weak characteristic 

 in this genus, as Godwits shot out of the same flock vary in a 

 most marked manner in this respect. 



This Godwit is found in the summer on the shores of the 

 sea of Okhotsk and in the North Island of Japan, in which 

 region it probably breeds. On passage to and from the 

 Northern Hemisphere it visits the coasts of China, where 

 Swinhoe obtained it in the month of April. It occurs hke- 

 wise in the Philippines, and Dr. Finsch records it from New 

 Britain and the Gilbert Islands, which lie to the north-east of 

 that Island. On the Austrahan coasts Dr. Ramsay notes it 

 from Cape York and New South Wales, south of which 

 colony it does not yet appear to have been observed. 



