Snipe, Sandpipers, etc. 



the godwits lose all shyness and caution when some members 

 of the flock that have been wounded by the gunner, cry out for 

 help. Unwilling to leave the place, and hovering round and round 

 the spot where a dead or dying comrade lies, they seem to forget 

 their fear of men and guns, now replaced by a sympathy that risks 

 life itself. Just so they hover about a nest and cry out sharply in 

 the greatest distress when it is approached, until one feels ashamed 

 to torment them by taking a peep at the four clay colored eggs, 

 spotted, blotched, and scrawled over with grayish brown, where 

 they lie in a grass lined depression of the ground. The nests 

 are by no means always near water; several seen in Minnesota 

 were in dry prairie land. 



The marlin feels along the shore somewhat as an avocet 

 does, its sensitive bill thrust forward almost at a horizontal, as 

 touch aids sight in the search for worms, snails, small crustaceans, 

 larvae, and such food as may be picked off the surface or probed 

 for as the bird walks along. Suddenly it will stop, thrust its bill 

 into the mud or sand up to the nostrils, and, snipe fashion, feel 

 about for a worm that has buried itself, but not escaped. Stand- 

 ing on one long leg, the other somehow concealed under the 

 plumage, the neck so drawn in it seems to be missing from the 

 marlin's anatomy, the bill held at a horizontal this is a charac- 

 teristic attitude whether the bird be standing knee deep in the 

 water, or among the prairie grass. 



The Hudsonian Godwit, Ring-tailed Martin, White-rumped, 

 Rose-breasted, or Red-breasted Godwit (Limosa hcemastica), 

 while it resembles the preceding in habits, differs from it in 

 length, which is about fifteen inches, and in plumage, which is 

 as follows: Upper parts black or dusky; the head and neck 

 streaked with buff, the back barred or mottled with it; upper 

 tail coverts white (conspicuous in flight), the lateral coverts tipped 

 or barred with black; the tail black, with a broad white base and 

 narrow white tip; throat buff streaked with dusky; the under 

 parts chestnut red barred with black, and sometimes tipped with 

 white. This bird, not so rare on the Atlantic coast as its relative, 

 is nevertheless not common either there or elsewhere in the 

 United States. 



222 



