394 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



was a young bird of the year. Like the greater 

 number of these partially migratory Waders, the 

 occurrences of this bird are most frequent in the 

 autumn, and next to that in the spring. This spe- 

 cies, however, is not so much of a summer resident 

 with us as some of the others, as it but rarely if ever 

 remains to breed in England; consequently I can 

 give but little or no information about its nesting 

 habits, except that Meyer supposes that, like many 

 of the other species included in this family, the nest 

 is placed on the ground. 



The food of the Bartailed Godwit consists of 

 aquatic insects, worms, beetles and small shell-fish. 



The summer plumage is as follows : The beak is 

 nearly black at the point, reddish brown at the base ; 

 the irides dusky brown ; the space between the beak 

 and the eye dark dusky and brick-dust red mixed ; 

 head and back of the neck streaked brick-dust red 

 and very dark dusky ; back, scapulars, lesser wing- 

 coverts and tertials dark dusky, all the feathers mar- 

 gined with brick-dust red ; the greater wing-coverts 

 dullish brown, margined with white, but these 

 feathers in my specimen may not have assumed 

 their full summer colouring, as many of the feathers 

 on the back and scapulars had not done so ; Yarrell, 

 however, describes these feathers as being the same 

 both in summer and winter; the rump and tail- 

 coverts white, with a few black bars on the latter ; 

 the tail-feathers brick- dust red, barred with dusky ; 



