168 BRITISH BIRDS WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



The adult male in summer dress has a bill about three inches long, dark 

 brown, but lighter at the base, and decidedly turned upwards towards the end ; 

 iris dark brown ; head, neck, and underparts chestnut, this colour appearing also 

 on the back, tertiaries, and upper tail-coverts in the form of marginal streaks and 

 saw-tooth marks to the feathers ; the crown and sides of face have dark shaft- 

 streaks to the feathers, also the shoulders and back, where they cover the greater 

 part of the feather ; wing quills sooty-black on their outward webs, with rather 

 lighter inner webs, and white shafts ; lower back and rump white, with dark grey- 

 brown centres to the feathers, clearly visible at this season, which pass into bars 

 on the upper tail-coverts and tail; legs and feet nearly black. Lengh 15-6 inches, 

 closed wing about 8. The female is usually larger, and longer in the bill, but 

 puts on much less chestnut. 



In the winter plumage the chestnut is entirely gone. Roughly speaking, the 

 upper parts are ashy-grey, striped and barred with browner grey ; the under parts 

 white, tinged with ashy-brown on breast and throat, and with darker shaft-stiipes 

 to these ; rump pure white, long tail-coverts barred with ashy-brown, but tail no 

 longer barred. The tail-feathers are now ashy-grey, with a dash of browner grey 

 down the shafts. 



The young in autumn are somewhat like the adults in winter, but the back 

 and breast are tinged with buff and much more spotted (and barred in the case 

 of the former). The tail is well barred with grey-brown, and the rump white. 

 They keep this plumage throiigh their first winter, and more or less during the 

 ensuing year, not assuming adult summer dress until the second spring. It is 

 due to this, no doubt, that a peculiarity often noticed in this species arises, viz. : 

 that there is a great difference in the length and upward curvature of the Bar- 

 tailed Godwits' bills. Out of a dozen shot in autumn, there may be an inch 

 difference between individuals in length of bill, some having bills three inches 

 long, others barely two, and but little upturned. 



The nestling I have never seen, but there is a full description in Dresser 

 (" Birds of Europe," Vol. VI., 205 and plate). It is buffy-white, with black 

 streaks and blotchings above, and a good deal of rusty on the wing and shoulders. 



John Wolley obtained the eggs in Finland as long ago as May agth, 1858. 

 They were figured by Hewitson, but no full description of the nest was published 

 and I am not aware that any Englishman has since been in a position to add 

 anything to the meagre notes which accompany the above plate, and which merely 

 state that the Bar-tailed Godwit " breeds in marshes, chiefly in the neighbourhood 

 of mountains, and gets up so warily from its nest that it is difficult to find it." 

 The colour of the eggs is olive-green, blotched and streaked with brown, and they 



