THE BAR-TAILED GODWIT. 419 
THIS SPECIES breeds in the far north ; it is said to have bred 
in Holland, but ifso, this is considerably south of its normal 
breeding zone. 
No reliable accounts of its nidification seem to exist, but it 
is said to lay in May and June, depositing two or three eggs 
(why not four ?) in a depression in the soil or in mossy tussocks 
in the northern morasses. 
Wolley says that this species breeds in marshes, chiefly in 
the neighbourhood of mountains, and gets up so warily from 
its nest, that it is difficult to find the eggs. 
The eggs appear to resemble, closely, those of the Black- 
tailed Godwit (already fully described) both in shape and 
colouration, but to average smaller, varying in length from I'g 
to 2°12, and in breadth from 1°4 to 1°53. But it is by no means 
certain that any of the eggs of this species, common enough in 
European collections, are authentic, — 
IN THIS species likewise adult females (to judge from our 
measurements) exceed the males in size, and specially in length 
of bill; but I have the measurements in the flesh of only eight 
birds, (six of my own and two of Butler’s recording) so that I 
cannot pretend to say that the following figures at all exhaust 
the limits within which the species may vary :— 
Males (6).—WLength, 13°5 to 14°8; expanse, 25°5 to 27°75; 
wing, 7°8 to 8'4; tail from vent, 2°7 to 3°3 ; tarsus, 1°95 to 2060; 
bill, at front, (which in this species also is the same as from 
gape,) 2°75 to 3°12; weight, 7°7 to 10 ozs, 
Females (2).—Length, 15°75 ; expanse, 280 to 28°5; wing, 
8:2 to 8:4; tail from vent, 2°75 to 3:0; tarsus, 2°1 ; bill at front, 
3°61 to 3°75; weight, 9 ozsto II°3 ozs. 
The legs and feet, in some almost black, are in others plum- 
beous or dusky plumbeous; the irides are deep brown; the 
bill is deep brown to blackish on the terminal half, darkest near 
the tip, and pinkish fleshy, more or less brownish on the culmen, 
on the basal half, 
THE PLATE represents this species in both summer and winter 
plumage, the latter being depicted in the sitting figure. In 
both figures the terminal portions of the bills and the irides are 
too light coloured. 
Here too the tail of the bird in winter plumage is hidden, 
but it is typically regularly barred, pure white and brown, much 
as depicted in the summer plumage, though in that stage the 
white interspaces have more or less of a rufous tinge. But in 
one or two of our birds, which I take to be young ones, the tail is 
not barred ; the feathers are a grey or grey brown, white tipped, 
with dark shafts, and only traces of a single darker antepenulti- 
mate bar. In another the exterior pair ave barred white and 
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