626 BLACK-TAILED GODWIT. 
it is repeatedly met with from August to the end of autumn, but 
only exceptionally in spring (Ussher). 
The Black-tailed Godwit has. been known to nest in the Feeroes, 
and does so annually in the south-east of Iceland; while on the 
Continent it breeds, sparsely, as far north as lat. 64°-65° in Scan- 
dinavia and Russia, plentifully in Poland, sparingly in Silesia, 
and—where the localities are suitable—in Northern Germany, Den- 
mark, Holland and Belgium. Elsewhere it is chiefly known on 
migration, in the course of which it visits the Canaries and Madeira ; 
its winter-quarters commencing in the basin of the Mediterranean 
and extending to Abyssinia. In Asia it is found in Western Siberia 
south of lat. 60° as far east as the valley of the Ob, and through 
Turkestan to the Altai, ranging over the Indian region to Ceylon 
in winter ; while, east of the Lena, a larger form inhabits Eastern 
Siberia and Kamchatka in summer, passing through Japan and 
China to Australia and Polynesia during the colder months. The 
occurrence of the Black-tailed Godwit in Greenland is doubtful ; 
and in North America the representative species is Z. hudsonica, 
which is smaller and has dark brown—instead of white—axillaries. 
The nest is a slightly-lined hollow among coarse herbage ; the 
eggs, 4 in number, are pear-shaped, and of a pale olive colour with 
brown spots: measurements 2°2 by 1°5 in. An excellent account of 
the nesting-habits, by the late Mr. A. C. Chapman, is in ‘ The Ibis,’ 
1894, p. 340; the usual note being syllabled as ti-ce-tooo. The 
food consists of insects and their larve, worms &c. 
The adult male in summer (figured in the foreground) has the 
head, neck and breast reddish-fawn colour, with dark markings on 
the crown and blackish bars on the lower breast; mantle brown, 
mottled with black ; wing-bar conspicuously white ; rump white ; 
tail-feathers white at their bases, with a broad subterminal black 
band; belly whitish, barred with dark brown. Length 16 in. (bill 
3°7), wing 8 in. The female is decidedly larger (though there is 
great individual variation), and her tints are duller. In winter the 
general colour is ash-brown above and greyish-ash below, the vent 
being white. The young are similar, but early in autumn they are 
tinged with rufous on the neck. 
The specific name delgica is based upon a full description, with an 
excellent coloured plate, in Nozeman’s ‘ Nederlandsche Vogelen’ ; 
while the term @gocephala, which has often been employed for this 
species, was originally bestowed on the Bar-tailed Godwit. 
