386 



LIMOSA. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



more or less abundance all the coasts of the British Islands, being most frequent on those 

 that are low and sandy, and commoner in the east than in the west of Great Britain. It 

 visits the Orkneys and Shetlands on migration, as well as the Channel Islands. A few 

 stragglers occasionally remain during winter ; and it sometimes wanders out of its usual 

 course when on migration, and visits the inland counties. In the same manner a few often 

 remain on our coasts all summer, unquestionably non-breeding birds. In Ireland it is said 

 to be more abundant than in Scotland. 



The Bar-tailed Godwit is entirely confined, during the breeding- season, to the 

 Siberian tundras above the limit of forest-growth from Lapland in the west across Behring's 

 Straits into Alaska in the east. It has not been recorded from Greenland, Iceland, or the 

 Faroes. The migrations of the Bar-tailed Godwit are somewhat peculiar. The mountains 

 and deserts of Central Asia appear to present to it an impassable barrier. It appears to 



Tail of young in first, lilumaae. 



be only an accidental visitor to the Indian peninsula east of the Indus, and it has never 

 been recorded from Burma. The Bar-tailed Godwits breeding in the lower valleys of the 

 Obb and the Petchora migrate down the valley of the Tobol into that of the Ural, or down 

 the valley of the Kama into that of the Volga, to the Caspian, whence they cross to the 

 Mekran coast, some possibly reaching Eastern Africa. Those breeding in North-west 

 Bussia and Lapland follow the coasts of Europe, and winter in the basin of the 

 Mediterranean, principally in North Africa ; they occasionally stray as far as the Canary 

 Islands, but on neither coast of Africa do they appear to cross the equator. 



