BRITISH BIRDS. 
83 
CINEREOUS GODWIT. 
This fpecies, as well as feveral others of the 
fame genus, feems to be very imperfectly known, 
or afcertained : the flight fhades of difference in 
their fize and plumage, probably occafioned only 
by age or fex, there is caufe to fufpedt may have 
led nomenclators, in their over anxiety to add new 
fpecies to their numbers, into errors ; but, how- 
ever this may be, the author will leave the matter 
as it {lands at prefent, to be elucidated by fports- 
men and ornithologifls ; and as he has never feen 
this or the three following kinds, he prefents only 
the defcriptions of others. Latham fays it is the 
fize of the Greenfhanlc. Bill two inches and a 
half long, but thicker than in that bird : the head, 
neck, and back variegated with afh-colour and 
white : tail {lightly barred with cinereous : throat 
and breafl: white ; the laft marked with a few alh- 
coloured fpots : legs long, {lender, and alh-colour- 
ed.’^ He mentions one as having been fliot near 
Spalding, in Lincolnfhire. Pennant fays it is 
about the fize of the Greenlhank, which it nearly 
refembles in its colours, but the bill is fo much 
thicker, as to form a fpecific diflinfliono^^ 
