48 GODWIT SNIPE. Class II. 



These birds are taken in the fens, in the same 

 .•'-'■'- season, and in the same manner, with the RufFs 



and Reeves, and when fattened are esteemed a 

 great delicacy, and sell for half-a-crown, or five 

 shillings, a piece. A stale of the same species is 

 placed in the net. They appear in small flocks 

 on our coast in September, and continue with 

 us the whole winter; they walk on the open 

 sands like the curlew, and feed on insects. 



M. Brisson has figured this bird very accu- 

 rately, but has given it the synonym of our 

 Greenshanks. Turner suspects this bird to have 

 been the attagen or attagas of the antients. 

 Aristophanes names it in an address to the birds 

 that inhabit the fens ; therefore some commen- 

 tators conclude it to be a w^ater fowl ; though 

 in a line or two after he speaks of those that 

 frequent the beautiful meadows of Marathon. 

 He then describes the bird in very striking terms, 

 under the title of the attagas, the bird zvith 

 painted wings ; and in another place he styles 

 it the spotted attagas^. This alone would be 

 insufficient to prove what species the poet in- 

 tended; we must therefore have recourse to 



Kttar/c/.S outos licc^ •'J/Jtiv liomko; ycsKkyjcrstoci. 



Av. 249. 762. 



