GODWIT. GRALLATORES. LIMOSA. 99 



ways recognised, under every state of plumage, by the com- 

 parative shortness of its legs, in being without the white up- 

 on the basal parts of the quills, and in having the tail feathers 

 invariably and distinctly barred. Its manners are also very 

 similar, and it inhabits the same localities ; but as its polar Periodical 

 migration seems to extend to much higher latitudes than 

 that of Limosa melanura, it is found during winter more 

 dispersed upon our northern coasts than that species, whose 

 appearance seldom occurs but at the periods of migratory 

 flight. This bird, in its summer plumage, is described by 

 MONTAGU under the title of the Red-breasted Snipe, and he 

 has quoted the names Scolopax Novoboracensis, and S. Hud- 

 sonica, as synonymous ; but the first belongs to a very diffe- 

 rent bird, viz. Macroramphus griseus of LEACH (the Brown 

 Snipe of authors), and it appears that S. Hudsonica, as I 

 have before mentioned, may be referred either to Limosa 

 melanura or L. Fedoa. Still greater perplexity and confu- 

 sion has been thrown upon the group by Mr STEPHENS, in 

 his continuation of SHAW'S Zoology, in which two supposed 

 new species are recorded, viz. Fedoa Meyeri (Meyer's God- 

 wit, described indeed as such by TEMMINCK in his first edi- 

 tion of the Manual, but afterwards, in his second edition of 

 the same work, plainly acknowledged to be Limosa ntfa in 

 a peculiar state of plumage), and Fedoa pectoralis, an imagi- 

 nary species, founded upon MONTAGU'S description of his 

 Red-breasted Snipe, and which he was only led to consider as 

 distinct, from the supposition that the Red Godwit of authors 

 was only referable to Limosa melanura (the Jadreka Snipe of 

 MONTAGU), not being aware at the time that a similar change 

 of plumage took place in the Common Godwit. 



These birds are usually found in small societies, frequent- 

 ing the mud banks of river-mouths, or inlets of the sea, 

 abounding in oozy shore, where they readily meet with the 

 usual food, viz. worms, aquatic insects, and the smaller uni- Food, 

 valve and bivalve mollusca. They often mingle with other 

 members of the Scolopacidae. as the Redshanks (Totanus cali- 



