SHORE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 55 



feathers banded irregularly with brown ; belly, tawny, sometimes without bauds ; bill, dull 

 flesh color in its basal half, the rest blackish; inner webs of outer primaries, speckled with 

 black; tail, barred with black; axillars, irregularly banded with dark slaty brown, in some 

 instances merely showing an indication of bands but always with more or less irregular marks 

 or dots where the bands are not perfect. 



Adult in winter: Top of the head, brown, streaked with pale brown; feathers of the back, 

 dark brown, edged with tawny; chin, white; throat, pale buff, faintly barred with brown; 

 inner webs of outer primaries, speckled with black. 



Length, 19 ; wing, 8.80 ; tarsus, 2.80 ; bill, 3.50 to 4.50. 



The Marbled Godwit, or Marlin, occurs throughout North America, breed- 

 ing in the interior, from the Missouri region northward. On the Pacific coast it 

 ranges from Alaska to Central America, and is very common in some localities 

 in Lower California and Texas. It is not very common anywhere on the 

 Atlantic coast, although it occurs at times in some numbers in Florida. 



The eggs are three or four, dull brownish ash color, blotched and mottled 

 with gray and grayish biown. 



The Pacific Godwit, Limosa lapponica baueri (Naum.), has once bcen 

 recorded from La Paz, Lower California (Bryant). It occurs in Alaska in 

 summer, but its true habitat is Australia and the Pacific Islands. 



