162 Bent, The Marbled Godwit. [^ 



most congenial home for the breeding shore birds — Marbled 

 Godwits, Western Willets, Bartramian Sandpipers, Wilson's Phal- 

 aropes, and Killdeers. 



Along the lower courses of the streams, near the lakes, but some- 

 times extending for a mile or more back from the lake, are usually 

 found broad, flat, alluvial plains, low enough to be flooded during 

 periods of high water. These plains are more or less moist at all 

 times, are exceedingly level, and are covered with short, thick grass 

 only a few inches high. Such spots are the chosen breeding grounds 

 of the Marbled Godwit, and, so far as our experience goes, the 

 nests of this species are invariably placed on these grassy plains or 

 meadows. 



The Godwit makes no attempt at concealment, the eggs being 

 deposited in plain sight in a slight hollow in the short grass. We 

 found, in all, four nests of this species with eggs, had two sets of 

 eggs brought to us by ranchmen, and found two broods of young. 

 The first nest was discovered on May 29, 1905. We had been 

 hunting the shores of a large alkaline lake, where a colony of Avo- 

 cets were breeding on the mud flats, near the outlet of a deep, slug- 

 gish stream, and it was while following along the banks of this 

 stream, as it wound its devious course down through a series of 

 broad, flat meadows, that I flushed a Godwit out of the short grass 

 only a few yards from the stream, and about one hundred yards 

 from the lake. On investigation I found that she had flown from 

 her nest, merely a slight hollow in the grass lined with dry grass, 

 which had, apparently, been simply trodden down where it grew, 

 without the addition of any new material brought in by the birds. 

 Only two eggs had been laid, so we marked the spot for future 

 reference and retired. On June 5 this nest was photographed, 

 and the four eggs which it then contained were collected. The 

 set is now in my collection, and may be described as follows: — 

 The ground color is a rich olive buff on three of the eggs, paler on 

 the fourth; the most richly colored egg is rather sparingly marked 

 with spots and small blotches of dull tawny olive and pale drab; 

 the other three are sparingly marked, chiefly about the larger end, 

 with spots and small blotches of raw umber, mummy brown and 

 pale drab or lilac; in shape they are all ovate pyriform; the meas- 

 urements are as follows, in inches: 2.24 by 1.53, 2.29 by 1.52, 2.14 

 by 1.50, and 2.16 by 1.53. 



