BLACK-TAILED GODWIT. 53 



easterly course to and down the western shore of Hudson Bay and 

 keeps much this same course overland to the coast of New England. 

 Thence it goes directly across the ocean to the Lesser Antilles and 

 British Guiana, and lastly south and southwest through central 

 Brazil to the pampas of Argentina, and to the coast of central Chile. 

 Judging by analogy from the golden plover, the spring migration 

 route of the Hudsonian godwit is from the pampas of northwestern 

 Argentina directly to the coast of Texas, and almost in one flight. 



This species is rare west of the Rocky Mountains. The British 

 Museum contains specimens said to have been taken in California 

 (Sharpe) , but as this is the only record for the State it needs confir- 

 mation. A few specimens have been taken in Alaska from the 

 Kenai Peninsula (Osgood) to the Yukon mouth (Dall and Bannister), 

 Nulato (Sharpe), and Point Barrow (Stone) on the north, but there 

 is no evidence that the species breeds west of the Mackenzie River. 

 Though the Hudsonian godwit is now very rare on the New England 

 coast, and has been since about 1886, yet previously it was so com- 

 mon that a gunner near Newport, R. I., records the shooting of 104 

 birds in the years 1867-1874 (Sturtevant). 



Spring migration. — The species arrives on the coast of Texas in 

 April (Sharpe) and has been recorded at Lawrence, Kans., as early 

 as April 19, 1873 (Snow); St. Louis, Mo., April 19, 1872 (Hurter); 

 in Grant County, Minn., April 25, 1876 (Sennett); Indian Head, 

 Saskatchewan, May 11, 1892 (Macoun); Fort Kenai, Alaska, May 5, 

 1869 (BischofT). Specimens were taken on the Falkland Islands as 

 late as May 20, 1860 (Abbott), and in Argentina to May 24 (Sharpe). 

 The earliest eggs taken were on June 7, 1862, at Fort Anderson 

 (MacFarlane). 



Fall migration. — A Biological Survey party found the Hudsonian 

 godwit already in southward migration July 19, 1900, near York 

 Factory, Keewatin (Preble); it was noted July 29, 1869, on the coast 

 of Rhode Island (Sturtevant) ; it arrives in August in the Lesser An- 

 tilles (Leotaud); in September in Brazil (Pelzeln); and by early 

 November has appeared at the extreme southern limit of the range 

 (Durnford). It is probably the arrival of young birds that is recorded 

 at Barbados (Feilden) in October, with October 7 as the average of 

 three years arid October 5, 1886, as the earliest. 



The la"st seen near Cape Churchill, Hudson Bay, in 1900, was on 

 August 24 (Preble); Toronto, Ontario, October 20, 1890 (Fleming); 

 Montreal, Canada, October 11, 1895 (Wintle); Rhode Island, October 

 13, 1873 (Sturtevant), and Massachusetts, November 3 (Howe and 

 Allen). 



Black-tailed Godwit. Limosa limosa (Linn.). 



The black-tailed godwit is confined to the Eastern Hemisphere, 

 breeding in Iceland, and from Holland and southern Russia north to 

 the Arctic Circle and east to western Siberia. It winters in southern 



