LIMOSA. 



Limosa hudsonica (Lath.), Swainson 8f Bichardson, Faun. Bor.-Amer. ii. p. 396 (1831). 

 Limosa australis, Gray, List Birds Brit. Mus. iii. p. 95 (1844) . 

 Limosa hsemastica [Linn.), Coues, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, 1880, p. 100. 

 Totanus hudsouicus [Lath.), Seebohm, British Birds, iii. p. 163 (1885). 



393 



Plates. — Edwards, Nat. Hist. Birds, iii. pi. 138 ; Audubon, Birds of America, v. pi. 349. 

 Habits. — Baird, Brewer, & Ridgway, Water-Birds N. Amer. i. p. 260. 



Eggs, described in the above-mentioned volume, p. 263, indistinguishable from small examples 

 of L. melanura. 



Literature. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



The American Black-tailed Godwit, or Hudsonian Godwit as it is called by the Specific 

 American ornithologists, may always be recognized by its dark broicn axillaries and under 

 mnff- coverts. 



It breeds on the tundras of North America, above the limit of forest-growth, from 

 Alaska to Baffin's Bay, but it is said to be very rare at the western extremity of its range. 

 In autumn it migrates southwards and crosses the tropics to winter in the temperate parts 

 of South America, where it has been obtained as far south as the Falkland Islands. 



It has been recorded twice from Alaska, once from the mouth of the Yukon River 

 (Dall & Bannister, Trans. Chic. Ac. Sc. i p. 298), and once from the island of Michalaski 

 (Adams, Ibis, 1878, p. 439) ; but it is probably very rare, as it was not met with by the 

 naturalists of the ' Corwin ' expedition, nor by the Point Barrow explorers, nor has it been 

 recorded from any other part of the Pacific coast of North America. It has only once been 

 recorded from the Pacific coast of South America (Bridges, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1843, p. 118), 

 where it is said to occur in Chili. 



It is a common though somewhat irregular migrant along the Atlantic coast of North 

 America, and has once occurred on the Bermudas (Reid, Zoologist, 1877, p. 477). It has 

 been recorded from Venezuela (Goering, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1869, p. 252), Buenos Ayres 

 (White, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1883, p. 42), the lagoons of the Chupat River in Patagonia 

 (Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 43), and the Falkland Islands (Darwin, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1860, 

 p. 387). 



3 E 



