{287}The breeding plumage is reddish-brown and black above, with rufous crown, neck, and breast, marked with dusky; the rump and terminal portion of the tail are black, the basal portion, tail-coverts, alar bar, and belly white: in winter the upper parts are brownish, the lower grey. The American representative, _L. hudsonica_, occupies the barren grounds of the north, and migrates to Patagonia and the Falkland Islands; it has black instead of nearly white axillaries. Though rarer in Britain than the succeeding species during the passage in autumn and spring, small flocks of fairly tame Black-tailed Godwits then frequent our muddy shores and sands–especially in the south; the summer note, or yelp, is louder than the winter cry. Four elongated pear-shaped eggs, of a dull olive shade with brown markings, are deposited in a slightly lined hollow in some grassy marsh. The males of Godwits constantly incubate. _L. lapponica_, the shorter-legged Bar-tailed Godwit, inhabits the countries from Finmark eastward to about the Taimyr Peninsula, where it meets the race _L. uropygialis_, which extends to Alaska. The western form migrates to the Gambia, Somaliland and North India, the eastern through Japan and China to the Malay Archipelago, Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania, rarely occurring in south-western North America. In summer the mantle is rufous-brown and black, the head and under parts are chestnut, with dark markings from the crown to the sides, the rump is white with a few dusky streaks, the tail and axillaries are white barred with brown: in winter the upper surface is chiefly grey, and the lower white. _L. uropygialis_ has the rump also barred. The nest of the Bar-tailed Godwit is usually in comparatively dry spots, or even on forest-clearings, the eggs being brighter green and more finely marked than those of the Black-tailed species. _L. fedoa_, the Marbled Godwit of northern North America, which winters southwards to Central America and the West Indies, is distinguished by its large size and buff axillaries. The almost cosmopolitan genus _Numenius_ is remarkable for its prolonged decurved bill, and its elongated legs. _N. arquata_, the Curlew or Whaup, breeds freely on the moorlands of Britain, and extends throughout Northern Europe and Asia to Lake Baikal; after breeding it visits the Atlantic Islands, the whole of Africa, and the Indian Region. {288}[Illustration: FIG. 59.–Curlew. _Numenius arquata._ × ⅕.]