LIMOSA. 3^7 



The term Bar-tailed Codwit is an unfortunate one, as the tails of fully adult birds in 

 winter plumage show scarcely any traces of bars. In the young in first plumage the bars 

 are very irregular. 



LIMOSA RUFA UROPYGIALIS. 



SIBERIAN BAB-TAIL ED GOBWIT. 



LniosA RUFA dorso postico vix albo notato. Diagnosis. 



The eastern and western forms of the Bar-tailed Godwit completely intergrade. Variations. 



Limosa baneri, Naumann, V'og. Deutschl. viii. p. 4.29 (1836, descript. null.). Synon)'mj-. 



Limosa brevipes, "j 



T ■ .L 1 ■ \ Gray, List Birds Brit. Mus. iii. pp. 95, 96 (184i, descript. null.). 



Limosa australasiana, J rr > \ > i- i 



Limosa lapponica, var. novae zealandiie, Gray\ Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 13 (18J6). 



Limosa uropygialis, Gould, Proc. Zool. Sac. 1848, p. 38. 



Limosa foxii, Peale, U.S. Expl. Exp. p. 231, pi. 65 (1848). 



Gallinago punctata, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7470. 



Plates. — Finsch & Hartlaub, Fauna Centr.-Polyiies. pi. 13 ; Gould, Birds of Australia, vi. Literature. 



pi. 29. 

 Habits. — Gould, Handb. Birds of Australia, ii. p. 252; Middendorflf, Sibir. Reise, Vog. p. 217. 

 Eggs. — Midd. Sibir. Reise, Vog. pi. xix. fig. 5. 



c 



The eastern form of the Bar-tailed Godwit of the Old World differs from the western gutspecifi 

 form of that species in the colour of the lower back and rump. In the eastern form the characters. 

 prevailing colour of each feather is brown, the white margins being somewhat obscure ; 



' It seems very strange that Gray should have given three names to the eastern form of the Bar-taUed 

 Godwit — so strange that Swinhoe, and others after him, concluded that the name of Limosa hrevipes had been 

 applied by Gray to the eastern form of the Black-tailed Godwit, which is remarkable for the shortness of its 

 tarsi. The type is, however, still in the British Museum, and is a Bar-tailed Godwit; but Gray himself 

 discovered the inappropriateness of the name, and altered it two years later into Limosa novm-zeahndice, a 

 name founded upon the same skin. The type of Limosa australasiana is in the mounted collection, and is an 

 adult in winter plumage with only rudiments of bars on the tail-feathers. 



3d 2 



