GopwiIirt. 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 
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 
Montacu 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 Lracu (the Brown 
Snipe of authors), and it appears that §. 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 STerueEns, 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 TEmmincx in his first edi- 
tion of the Manual, but afterwards, in his second edition of 
the same work, plainly acknowledged to be Limosa rufa in 
a peculiar state of plumage), and Fedoa pectoralis, an imagi- 
nary species, founded upon Monracuv’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 
Monracv), 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- 
valve and bivalve mollusca. They often mingle with other 
members of the Scolopacide, as the Redshanks ( T’otanus cali- 
G2 
Periodical 
vistant. 
Food. 
