390 



LIMOSA. 



Variations. 



Synonymy. 



Eastern examples average so much smaller in size than western ones that they may be 

 regarded as subspecifically distinct. 



Scolopax limosa, Linneus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 147 (1758) ; Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 245 (1766). 



Limosa limosa (Linn.), Brisson, Orn. v. p. 262 (1760). 



Scolopax belgica, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 663 (1788). 



Totanus limosa (Briss.), Bechstein, Orn. Taschenb. ii. p. 287 (1803). 



Actitis limosa (Briss.), Illiger, Prodr. p. 262 (1811). 



Limosa melanura, Leisler, Nachtr. Bechst. Naturg. ii. p. 153 (1813). 



Limicula melanura (Leisl.), Vieillot, N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. iii. p. 250 (1816). 



Fedoa melanura (Leisl.) , Stephens, Shaw's Gen. Zool. xii. pt. i. p. 73 (18'24). 



Totanus melanurus (Leisl), Seebohm, Brit. Birds, iii. p. 162 (1885). 



Literature. Plates.— Daub. PI. Enl. nos. 874, 916 ; Gould, Birds Gt. Brit. iv. pi. 50; Dresser, Birds of 



Europe, viii. pis. 573, 574. 

 Habits. — Seebohm, British Birds, iii. p. 162. 

 Eggs.— Seebohm, British Birds, pi. 29. 



Specific 

 characters. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



The Godwits of the Old World may always be distinguished from those of the New 

 World by the colour of their under wing-coverts and axillaries. In the former the ground- 

 colour of these parts is always white, and in the latter chestnut or brown. The two 

 Godwits of the Old World may be distinguished from each other in various ways ; but 

 perhaps the simplest diagnosis of L. melanura is tail-feathers black with concealed white 

 bases ; axillaries white, more or less obscurely barred with brown. 



Like the Bar-tailed Godwit the Black-tailed Godwit may be subdivided into an 

 eastern and a western race. The latter is a regular summer visitor to the south of Iceland 

 and the Faroes, and has been recorded from Greenland, though the evidence is most, 

 unsatisfactory. In the British Islands it is now only known on migration ; but it still 

 breeds in Holland, North Germany, Denmark, Scandinavia (occasionally as far north as the 

 Arctic Circle), and in Central and Southern Russia. In South Siberia, west of the main 

 valley of the Obb, it breeds as far north as lat. 60°. The European birds winter on the 

 coasts of Spain and on the shores of the basin of the Mediterranean, occasionally straggling 

 along the west coast as far as the Canaries and Madeira, and down the Red Sea as far as 

 Abyssinia. The West-Siberian birds, and probably most of the East-Russian ones, winter 

 on the shores of the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and the coasts and inland waters of 

 India and Ceylon ; they pass through Western Turkestan and the Himalayas on migration, 

 and are much commoner in the north than in the south, and on the coast than on the 

 inland lakes and rivers. 



There is no difference in colour between the eastern and western forms of the 



