THE COMMON OR BAR-TAILED GODWIT. 227 



merit to the shooters in the village, when I returned homeward, of 

 the easy prey that awaited them. At a different part of the shore 

 on the same day, thirty-one godwits were killed by two persons 

 shooting in compauy, a number which would probably have been 

 doubled, had one of the guns not missed fire at the best shot offered 

 during the day: this was at "the great flock of from 200 to 300," 

 which from a distance of four or five yards, with the gun resting 

 on a ditch-bank, was sought to be fired at : the birds were so 

 close together that less than thirty could hardly have fallen had the 

 gun been discharged. This being on a Saturday, the report of the 

 number of these birds seen, had time to spread widely before 

 Monday morning, when the field — or rather shore — was taken by 

 so many shooters, that the execution done on the poor godwits 

 was very great : about twenty or thirty birds were killed by 

 single guns. For several days they continued in considerable 

 numbers ; but experience teaching them like other bipeds, they 

 became gradually less easy of approach. They were in very good 

 condition, and sold at this time in Belfast at sixpence a couple. 

 Godwits remained later than usual in the bay that season, and oc- 

 casionally fell to my gun until the 24th of October. At the begin- 

 ning of September, when these birds appeared in such numbers in 

 Belfast Bay, they were very abundant in Larne Lough, the next 

 inlet of the sea northward — and of a similar oozy nature — on the 

 Antrim coast. 



Since 1822, godwits have in some seasons appeared in con- 

 siderable numbers ; but not so plentifully as at that time. In 1836, 

 a shooter of my acquaintance killed about a hundred in Belfast 

 Bay : — in 1839 he obtained twelve in one day, killing six at a single 

 shot. On September 15, 1840, he and another person, by firing 

 at the same moment from a boat, killed on the bank 5 godwits, 

 19 knots, and 3 dunlins. After a few more shots they had bagged 

 15 godwits, 26 knots, 1 teal, and 5 dunlins, these last killed from 

 being in the way, or associating with their betters : my informant 

 has particularly remarked the partiality that godwits and knots 

 have for keeping together, which they do in flight as well as on 

 the ground — they seem more social than the godwit is with the 



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