BAR-TAILED GODWIT. 157 



recorded from Greenland, Iceland, or the Faroes. The migrations of the 

 Bar-tailed Godwit are somewhat peculiar. The mountains and deserts of 

 Central Asia appear to present to it an impassable barrier. It is doubtful 

 whether it is a regular visitor to the Indian peninsula east of the Indus *, 

 and it has never been recorded from Burma. The Bar-tailed Godwits 

 breeding in the lower valleys of the Obb and the Petchora migrate down 

 the valley of the Tobol into that of the Ural, or down the valley of the 

 Kama into that of the Volga, to the Caspian, whence they cross to the 

 Mekran coast, some possibly reaching Eastern Africa. Those breeding in 

 North-west Russia and Lapland follow the coasts of Europe, and winter in 

 the basin of the Mediterranean, principally in North Africa ; they occa- 

 sionally stray as far as the Canary Islands, but on neither coast of Africa 

 do they appear to cross the equator. The eastern Bar-tailed Godwits 

 pass the coasts of Japan, Mantchooria, and China on migration, and 

 winter in the islands of the Malay archipelago, Australia, the New 

 Hebrides, Norfolk Island, and New Zealand. 



The result of this interrupted area of distribution during winter has been 

 the establishment of an eastern and a western race. The former has the 

 dark centres of the feathers of the rump more numerous and larger than is 

 the case with the latter, and may be distinguished as Limosa lapponica uro- 

 pygialis t, presenting a parallel case to that of the eastern and western forms 

 of the Whimbrel, though in the two forms of the Curlew these differences 

 are reversed. 



* Dresser's statement that Captain Bulger records it as " not uncommon at Mulci- 

 bon, Selham, and Ras Dowra, in Sikkim," is evidently a corruption of the original text of 

 " Further Notes on the Birds of Morocco " (Tyrwhitt Drake, ' Ibis,' 1869, p. 164), where it 

 remarked of Limosa lapponica, " not uncommon at Mulei-bou-Selham and Ras-dowra." 

 It is probably an accidental visitor to the Himalayas (Blyth, ' Ibis,' 1865, p. 36). 

 t The synonymy of the eastern form is as follows : 

 Limosa baueri, Naum. Vog. Deutschl. viii. p. 429 (1836, descript. null.). 

 Limosa brevipes, ) Gray, List Birds Brit. Mm. iii. pp. 95, 96 (1844, descript. 

 Limosa australasiana, \ tiull.). 

 Limosa lapponica, var. novae zealandise, Gray, Toy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 18 



(1846). 



Limosa uropygialis, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1848, p. 38 ; et auctorum plurimonun 

 Gray, Reichenbach, Macgittivray, Bonaparte, Swinhoe, Schlegel, Finsch, Hartlaub, 

 David, Walden, Taczanowsky, Ramsay, Layard, &c. 

 Limosa foxii, Peale, U.S. Expl Exp. p. 231, pi. 65 (1848). 

 Gallinago punctata, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7470. 



It is impossible to say where these two forms meet, but most probably on the Taimur 

 peninsula. An example which I obtained in the valley of the Yenesay is unquestionably 

 the western form. Probably the Godwits found by Middendorff on the Taimur peninsula 

 are somewhat intermediate, as he failed to notice any difference between them and 

 examples obtained at Ochotsk. Dresser, who considers the two races specifically distinct, 

 regards the Taimur-peninsula Godwits as the eastern species, remarking that " Midden- 

 dorff especially refers to the barred rump." This is another of the numerous cases of mis- 



