170 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



their living by the capture of Ruffs, Peewits, and these birds; they were after- 

 wards fattened on bread and milk and sold, mostly in London, as a table 

 delicacy. Latterly, i.e., in Pennant's time, they were sold fo^as much as five 

 shillings apiece, and were considered the " daintest dish in England" as Sir 

 Thomas Browne wrote, two centuries ago. The fens of Cambridgeshire, Lincoln 

 and Norfolk were their headquarters — now, of course, the fens themselves are 

 almost as much a thing of the past as breeding Godwits. 



There is a small colony in South-East Iceland, where the bird is called by a 

 name which English writers usually write "Jadrakan" or even "Jardroeka." It 

 is not "Jad" anything; this letter written "d" is an old " th," and if the name 

 is to be Anglicised at all, it might as well convey something like the proper 

 sound: "Jathreka" is the Icelandic name, which sounds in phonetic English 

 " Yathraka," and means " earth-raker." Elsewhere in Europe it breeds in 

 Belgium, Holland, Denmark, North Germany, Scandinavia and Russia up to 65° 

 N., being as abundant in Finland as anywhere. In Asia its breeding range, like 

 that of other birds, drops to lat. 60°, and it is found from the Caspian to 

 Eastern Siberia, wintering in the Mediterranean basin and as far south as 

 Abyssinia, India, and Australasia, passing through the intermediate countriies on 

 migration. The Eastern Asiatic Black-tailed Godwits have long been known as 

 L. melanurdides, but they are all treated, and wisely, as one species in the B. M. 

 Catalogue. Our bird does not occur in America, though it has been reported 

 from Greenland, on what looks like insufficient evidence. The American form 

 fL. hudsonicaj has slaty-black axillaries and under wing-coverts. 



The adult in summer (^ Stallingboro', Lines., 1879) lias a considerably longer 

 bill than the last species (4 to 4 J inches) about equally turned up towards the 

 tip; head, neck, and breast (except a white chin) rufous, with dark brown shaft 

 stripes on the crown, and irregular bars of the same colour on the breast, growing 

 broader towards the tail ; back and wings brown, the former irregularly mottled 

 here and there with rufous and black; primaries and secondaries nearly black, 

 with white shafts and white bases, which are visible in flight; lower back dark 

 grey-brown; lower rump pure white; tail black, with concealed white bases to 

 the feathers; axillaries, underwing and tail-coverts, and belly, white, the latter 

 with a few dusky bars; legs and feet nearly black, with a greenish or bluish 

 tinge. Length t.C\ inches, closed wing 8J. The female is, as a rule, larger, but 

 there is considerable variation in size in both sexes. 



The adult in winter is plain ashy grey, lighter underneath, passing into white 

 below the breast; wings as in summer, but with the white tips to the greater 

 coverts more developed. 



