GREAT MARBLED GODWIT. 479 
become of’ a pale dun color above, the pltmage being shafted with 
dark brown, and the tail white, or nearly so. At this season they are 
extremely fat, and esteemed excellent eating. Experienced gunners 
always select the lightest colored ones from a flock, as being uniform- 
ly the fattest. 
The female of this species is generally larger than the male. In 
the months of October and November, they gradually disappear. 
GREAT MARBLED GODWIT. — SCOLOPAX FEDOA. — 
Fig. 222. — Femace. 
Arct. Zool. p. 465, No. 371. —La barge rousse de Baie d’Hudson, Buff. vii. 507. 
— Peule’s Museum, No. 4019. 
LIMOSA FEDOA. — Viritior. 
Limosa fedoa, Ord's edit. of Wis. — Bonap. Synop. p- 328. 
Tuis is another transient visitant of our sea-coasts in spring and 
autumn, to and from its breeding place in the north. Our gunners 
call it the Straight-billed Curlew, and sometimes the Red Curlew. 
It is a shy, cautious, and watchful bird; yet so strongly are they at- 
tached to each other, that, on wounding one in a flock, the rest are 
immediately arrested in their flight, making so many circuits over the 
spot where it lies fluttering and screaming, that the sportsman often 
makes great destruction among them. Like the Curlew, they may 
also be enticed within shot, by imitating their call, or whistle ; but can 
seldom be approached without some such maneuvre. They are much 
less numerous than the Short-billed Curlews, with whom, however, 
they not unfrequently associate. They are found among the salt 
marshes in May, and for some time in June, and also on their return 
in Octqber and November; at which last season they are usually fat, 
and in high esteem for the table. 
The female of this bird having been described by several writers as 
a distinct species from the male, it has been thought proper to repre- 
sent the former, (Fig. 222;) the chief difference consists in the undu- 
lating bars of black with which the breast of the male is marked, and 
which are wanting in the female. 
The male of the Great Marbled Godwit is nineteen inches long, 
and thirty-four inches in extent; the bill is rearly six inches in length, 
a little turned up towards the extremity where it is black, the 
base is of a pale purplish flesh color; chin and upper part of the 
throat, whitish; head and neck, mottled with dusky brown and black 
on a ferruginous ground; breast, barred with wavy lines of black; 
back and scapulars, black, marbled with pale brown; rump and 
tail-coverts, of a very light brown, barred with dark brown; tail, even, 
except the two middle feathers, which are a little the longest; wings, 
pale ferruginous, elegantly marbled with dark brown, the four first 
primaries black on the outer edge; whole lining and lower par‘s of the 
