BLACK-TAILED GODWIT. 489 



quill-feather the longest. Tail short and even. Legs long and slender, a great 

 part of the tibia naked. Feet four-toed, three in front, one behind ; outer and 

 middle toes united at the base by a membrane, the inner toe nearly free ; 

 middle claw dilated, recurved, and pectinated ; hind toe short, and articulated 

 upon the tarsus. 



GODWITS, of which in Britain there are two species, were 

 more common formerly than they are at present. Sir 

 Thomas Browne, when writing some of his notes on natural 

 history, two hundred years ago, says, " Godwits are taken 

 chiefly in marsh-land, though other parts are not without 

 them : they are accounted the daintiest dish in England." 

 This bird was considered an article of luxury in Ben Jonson's 

 time. 



"Your eating 



Pheasant and Godwit here in London, haunting 

 The < Globes ' and ' Mermaids ' ; wedging in with lords 

 Still at the table." 



The Devil is an Ass, iii. 3. 



And Thomas Muffett, that " ever famous doctor in physick," 

 as he is called in the title-page to ' Health's Improvement,' 

 says (page 99), "but a fat Godwit is so fine and light meat, 

 that noblemen, yea, and merchants too, by your leave, stick 

 not to buy them at four nobles a dozen." 



It was formerly the practice of some of the fenmen in 

 Lincolnshire to fatten a few Godwits on bread and milk 

 with the Ruffs when they happen to catch any, and the 

 Author, many years ago, saw several that had been sent up 

 to the London Market for sale after having been thus fed 

 and fattened. Pennant says (Brit. Zool. ii. p. 351) that in 

 his time these fattened birds sold for five shillings each. 



The changes in colour which our two Godwits undergo in 

 spring during the assumption of the perfect dress of sum- 

 mer, and again in the autumnal moult leading to the plum- 

 age of winter, the general similarity in the colours of the 

 two species, and the difference in the size of the sexes (the 

 females being considerably larger than the males), have led 

 to confusion in the works of some of the earlier writers on 

 British Birds ; but in several species of the family Scolopa- 

 cida now under consideration, the tail-feathers suffice to 



VOL. in. 3 R 



