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The Blacktailed Godwit is also included in Professor Ansted's list, but I have never seen the bird in the Islands or been able to glean any information concerning it, and there is no specimen in the Museum. GREENSHANK. Totanus canescens, Gmelin. French, "Chevalier gris," "Chevalier aboyeur." The Greenshank can only be considered a rare occasional visitant.
RHODE ISLAND: Heath hen, passenger pigeon, wild turkey, least tern, eastern willet, Eskimo curlew, marbled godwit, long-billed curlew. SOUTH CAROLINA: Ivory-billed woodpecker, Carolina parrakeet; bison, elk, puma, gray wolf. SOUTH DAKOTA: Whooping crane, trumpeter swan, pigeon, long-billed curlew; bison, elk, mule deer, mountain sheep. TENNESSEE: Records insufficient.
Swallows flashed by hundreds out of the cliffs, and began their air-dance for the day; the jerboa hopped stealthily homeward on his stilts from his stolen meal in the monastery garden; the brown sand-lizards underneath the stones opened one eyelid each, and having satisfied themselves that it was day, dragged their bloated bodies and whip-like tails out into the most burning patch of gravel which they could find, and nestling together as a further protection against cold, fell fast asleep again; the buzzard, who considered himself lord of the valley, awoke with a long querulous bark, and rising aloft in two or three vast rings, to stretch himself after his night's sleep, bung motionless, watching every lark which chirruped on the cliffs; while from the far-off Nile below, the awakening croak of pelicans, the clang of geese, the whistle of the godwit and curlew, came ringing up the windings of the glen; and last of all the voices of the monks rose chanting a morning hymn to some wild Eastern air; and a new day had begun in Seetis, like those which went before, and those which were to follow after, week after week, year after year, of toil and prayer as quiet as its sleep.
BARTAILED GODWIT. Limosa lapponica, Linnaeus. French, "Barge rousse." The Bar-tailed Godwit is a regular and sometimes rather numerous spring and autumn visitant.
And so, when the males of the smaller migrants confine their movements to an acre of ground at the completion of their long journey, they are acting no more under the influence of fatigue than the Cuckoo, which keeps within certain bounds yet flies about briskly, or the Godwit which, though holding to its few square yards on the ground, executes most tiring and extensive flights above the marsh.
NORTH DAKOTA: Wood-duck, prairie hen, upland plover, sharp-tailed grouse, canvas-back, pinnated and ruffed grouse, double-crested cormorant, blue heron, long-billed curlew, whooping crane and white pelican. Upland plover, marbled godwit, Baird's sparrow, chestnut-collared longspur.
The godwit, already mentioned, has been observed in flocks at the Falkland Islands in May, that is, three months after the same species had taken its autumal departure from the neighbouring mainland. Can it be believed that these late visitors to the Falklands were breeders in Patagonia, and had migrated east to winter in so bleak a region? It is far more probable that they came from the south.
These were the birds we sought after in winter; but we could shoot for the table all the year round, for no sooner was it the duck's pairing and breeding season than another bird-population from their breeding- grounds in the arctic and sub-arctic regions came on the scene plover, sandpiper, godwit, curlew, whimbrel, a host of northern species that made the summer-dried pampas their winter abode.
NORTH DAKOTA: Whooping crane, long-billed curlew, Hudsonian godwit, passenger pigeon; bison, elk, mule deer, mountain sheep. OHIO: Pigeon, wild turkey, pinnated grouse, northern pileated woodpecker, parrakeet; white-tailed deer, bison, elk, black bear, puma, gray wolf, beaver, otter, puma, lynx. OKLAHOMA: Records for birds insufficient. Mammals: bison, elk, antelope, mule deer, puma, black bear.
The mammoth had also apparently tried to make its escape, but had perished in large numbers in the region of Escholtz Bay, at a section often called the Mammoth Graveyard. The birds and ducks seemed to be trying to overtake the retreating sun as it worked its way southward, the godwit continuing its flight as far as New Zealand, where it yet continues to spend the winter months.
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