216 Order XIII 



of which a slightly different form takes its place. The 

 flight, food, note, and eggs are similar to those of the 

 next species, but in the Arctic regions the localities 

 chosen for the nest, when any is made, are naturally 

 of a more barren description. 



The Black-tailed Godwit {L. limosa) is now but an 

 uncommon visitor to any part of Britain between 

 autumn and spring, though it bred in Yorkshire, 

 Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk during the 

 first half of last century. It is one of those species 

 which might possibly nest with us again, in the absence 

 of persecution, for it does so as near our shores as 

 Holland, while its range includes the Faeroes, Iceland, 

 northern Europe, and northern Asia, if we include a 

 slightly different form found in the east of the latter. 

 It differs from the Bar-tailed Godwit in having the 

 head, neck, and breast reddish buff with a certain 

 amount of black markings, which are more evident on 

 the brown back, but the chief distinction lies in the tail, 

 which has only one wide black bar. The rump and a 

 wing-bar are white, the beUy white and brown. In 

 winter it is chiefly red-brown above and grey below. 

 The flight is fairly strong, and the birds travel well when 

 disturbed on the sands or mud flats which are their 

 resorts on passage ; the cry is of two syllables and of a 

 yelping nature. The food resembles that of Sandpipers 

 generally ; the nest is a slight fabric placed in rough 

 herbage; the four pear-shaped eggs are of a peculiar 

 dull greenish brown colour with subdued brown spots. 



The Curlew, or Whaup of Scotland and its borders 

 (Numenius arquata), is a most characteristic moorland 

 bird, occurring on our hills and low-lying heaths from 

 south-western England and Wales to Derbyshire and 



