LIMOSA.] AVES GRALLATORES. 203 



(Young of the year.) " Head, nape, back, and scapulars, deep brown, 

 the feathers with an interrupted border of yellowish white ; wing-coverts 

 broadly edged with white: neck, breast, and flanks, reddish ash, with fine 

 longitudinal streaks of brown; band above the eyes, throat, and belly, 

 pure white; rump and under tail-coverts white, with large lanceolate 

 dusky spots : tail with broad zigzag bars of brown and reddish white ; 

 the tip white : legs dusky ash." TEMM. (Egg.) Unknown. 



Not uncommon on our coasts during the winter months, and occasion- 

 ally observed in marshes inland. Said to resort to higher latitudes to 

 breed. Food, worms, insects, and the smaller bivalve mollusca. Obs. The 

 Common Godwit of Montagu and Bewick is this species in its winter 

 plumage. The Red Godwit of this last author (but not of Montagu) is 

 the same in its summer plumage. 



196. L. melanura, Leisl. (Black-tailed Godwit.} 

 Tail of a uniform black, the base white: wings with a 

 transverse white bar : bill very slightly curved : middle 

 claw long and serrated : tarsi very long. 



L. melanura, Temm. Man. d'Orn. torn. u. p. 664. Black-tailed 

 Godwit, Selb. Illust. vol. n. p. 94. pi. 21. Jadreka Snipe, Mont. 

 Orn. Diet. Supp. with fig. 



DIMENS. Entire length seventeen inches six lines : length of the bill 

 (from the forehead) four inches seven lines, (from the gape) four inches 

 ten lines ; of the tarsus three inches four lines ; of the naked part of the 

 tibia one inch eleven lines; of the tail three inches eight lines; from the 

 carpus to the end of the wing nine inches six lines. 



DESCRIPT. (Winter plumage.') All the upper parts of a uniform 

 cinereous brown, with the shafts of the feathers of a somewhat deeper 

 tint : streak over the eyes, throat, fore part of the neck, breast, and 

 flanks, grayish white; belly, abdomen, rump, and under tail-coverts, 

 white : quills dusky ; the basal portion of some of the primaries white : 

 greater wing-coverts ash-gray, broadly edged with white : tail white for 

 one-third of its length from the base ; the remaining portion black ; the 

 two middle feathers tipped with white : bill orange-red at the base, the 

 tip black: legs dusky gray; the tarsi much longer than in the last 

 species. (Summer plumage.) Crown of the head black, the feathers 

 edged with bright red : eye-streak reddish white ; space between the 

 eye and the bill brown ; throat and neck bright ferruginous, with brown- 

 ish specks ; breast and flanks the same, with transverse crescent-shaped 

 bars of brownish black : upper part of the back, and scapulars, deep black, 

 all the feathers tipped with reddish brown, and edged at the sides with 

 small spots of the same colour ; wing-coverts much as in winter : middle 

 of the belly, abdomen, and base of the tail, white ; lower part of the back, 

 and remainder of the tail, deep black: base of the bill bright orange : legs 

 black. (Young of the year, before the first moult.) Eye-streak, throat, 

 base of the tail, belly, and abdomen, white: upper part of the head brown, 

 the feathers with reddish edges ; neck and breast pale red, tinged with 

 cinereous; feathers on the back and scapulars dusky brown, surrounded 

 by a red border ; wing-coverts cinereous, broadly edged and tipped with 

 reddish white ; tips of the tail-feathers edged with white : extremity of 

 the bill brown. (Egg.) Light olive-brown, blotched and spotted with 

 darker brown: long. diam. two inches two lines; trans, diam. one inch 

 six lines. 



