220 ORALLY. 



Godwits run very fast, more rapidly than snipes or tringas, 

 and make their escape to a considerable distance on foot 

 before they take wing ; when they do, they yelp and clamour 

 in a very loud and rather a harsh and bleating strain. 



There are two species that may be considered as British 

 birds, the black-tailed godwit, and the bar-tailed godwit ; 

 but as they are subject to varieties of plumage, and also to 

 differences of size, they have sometimes been multiplied into 

 three or four species. 



THE BLACK-TAILED GODWIT (Limosa melanuro). 



There is some " confusion of tongues " in the account of 

 this species, for which the bird itself appears to be, of late 

 years, making reprisals, by becoming rather more capricious 

 in its appearance than it used to be. It still breeds in the 

 fens, though much more rarely than in former times, and 

 recently it appears as if it sometimes alternated with the 

 other and migrant species. 



The most distinctive characters of the black-tailed godwit, 

 and those which it most decidedly retains in all the changes 

 of its plumage, are the form of the bill and the colour of the 

 tail. The bill has so slight a curvature upwards, that it is 

 hardly perceptible without applying a straight edge to it ; 

 and the tail is black for two-thirds at the distal end, and 

 white the other third at the bases of the feathers. The other 

 godwit has the bill more recurved, and the tail with numerous 

 bars of black and white, and it is also rather shorter in the 

 tarsi in proportion to its size. 



In its summer or breeding plumage, the black-tailed god- 

 wit has the head reddish brown, streaked with dusky and 

 black ; the lower part of the neck behind, the back, and the 

 scapulars, black, barred or margined more or less with brown. 

 The coverts of the wings brown, the lesser edged with white ; 

 the quills dusky, with white at the bases. A dull white streak 



