THE BAR-TAILED GODWIT. l6 7 



trees ; most birds up there seem to learn this practice, for reasons which will 

 appear to all who have read Seebohm's " Siberia in Europe ; " the wide valleys 

 being flooded during the melting of the ice and snow, when spring bursts on the 

 country, birds are almost compelled to take to the trees to find standing-ground. 



Family SCOL OP A CIDsE. 



BAR-TAILED GODWIT. 



Limosa lapponica, LINN. 



OF this, by far the most abundant in numbers of the two Godwits in Britain, 

 the eggs are but little known ; the next species, though formerly a breeding 

 species with us, must be held a comparative rarity now. The name " Godwit " is 

 probably old English for " good sense," i.e., cuteness, wariness, but I have not 

 found the Godwits by any means as wary as the Greenshank, or Curlew. 



The Bar-tailed Godwit breeds above the Arctic Circle on the bare tundras, 

 from Lapland, across Asia, to Alaska. The Bar-tailed Godwits, however, found 

 east of the Taimyr Peninsula, are placed in a separate subspecies (L. uropygyialis 

 or novce-zealandicej, from having the rump and lower back much more obviously 

 spotted with grey-brown in autumn and winter dress. In the western individuals 

 the grey-brown centres to the feathers are but little visible at these times of year, 

 unless the feathers are displaced. 



In autumn, winter, and spring, this bird is a migrant to our coasts, especially 

 on the east side, somewhat local in its distribution, yet sometimes in immense 

 numbers ; much more abundant some seasons than others. But in red summer 

 dress it is very rarely found except on our south and south-east shores. This 

 our western form passes on migration through Europe generally, to winter from 

 Sindh and the Mediterranean basin to Great Britain and possibly the Canaries, 

 not going south of the Equator. 



