COMMON GOD WIT. 
195 
The Common or Red Godwit. — Limosa rufa, 
Briss. — Red-breasted Snipe , Mont., ( summer plu- 
mage.) — Scolopax leucophea, Lath — Grey God- 
n >it, Linn., ( winter plumage.) — Common or Red 
Godrcit of British authors. — This species, though 
more abundant and more generally distributed than 
the last, is by no means common, and their general 
time of appearance is in autumn, remaining with 
us during the winter, on the low lying shores of 
our islands, where the beach is soft, and there are 
rivers, or small streams from springs. They appear 
at that season in small parties, which have left 
the district where incubation had been carried on, 
and now mingle with other allied birds, but are 
easily known at a distance by their more compact 
form, and by the length of their bill, which is seen 
boring into the soft sand or mire. On taking wing, 
their shrill cry, or “ Whelp," at once betrays them. 
W e have shot many specimens, on the low shores 
between Holy Island and the Northumbrian coast. 
The Merse, at Skinburness, and banks of the Wam- 
poole on the Solway, are localities where we have 
never missed parties of them in the end of August 
and in September, mingling with several others 
of the Totani and Tringm , which are considered of 
less common occurrence on the border. In Ire- 
land, they are “ a regular autumnal visitant”. From 
all the information we possess and can procure, the 
range of this bird is much more limited than that of 
the last, does not appear to reach so far north, and. 
