THE COMMON OR BAR-TAILED GODWIT. 
227 
ment to the shooters in the village, when I returned homeward, of 
the easy prey that awaited them. At a different part of the shore 
on the same day, tliirty-one godwits were killed by two persons 
shooting in company, a number which would probably have been 
doubled, had one of the guns not missed fire at the best shot offered 
during the day: this was at ‘'^the great flock of from 200 to 300,''' 
which from a distance of four or five yards, with the gun resting 
on a ditch-bank, was sought to be fired at : the birds were so 
close together that less than thirty could hardly have fallen had the 
gun been discharged. This being on a Saturday, the report of the 
number of these birds seen, had time to spread widely before 
Monday morning, when the field — or rather shore — was taken by 
so many shooters, that the execution done on the poor godwits 
was very great : about twenty or thirty birds were killed by 
single guns. Tor several days they continued in considerable 
numbers ; but experience teaching them like other bipeds, they 
became gradually less easy of approach. They were in very good 
condition, and sold at this time in Belfast at sixpence a couple. 
Godwits remained later than usual in the bay that season, and oc- 
casionally fell to my gun until the 24th of October. At the begin- 
ning of September, when these birds appeared in such numbers in 
Belfast Bay, they were very abundant in Larne Lough, the next 
inlet of the sea northward — and of a similar oozy nature — on the 
Antrim coast. 
Since 1822, godwits have in some seasons appeared in con- 
siderable numbers ; but not so plentifully as at that time. In 1836, 
a shooter of my acquaintance killed about a hundred in Belfast 
Bay : — in 1839 he obtained twelve in one day, killing six at a single 
shot. On September 15, 1840, he and another person, by firing 
at the same moment from a boat, killed on the bank 6 godwits, 
19 knots, and 3 dunlins. After a few more shots they had bagged 
15 godwits, 26 knots, 1 teal, and 5 duidins, these last killed from 
being in the way, or associating with their betters : my informant 
has particularly remarked the partiality that godwits and knots 
have for keeping together, which they do in flight as well as on 
the ground — they seem more social than the godwit is with the 
Q 2 
