g6 April, 



THE RED-NECKED PHAEAROPE IN IRELAND, 



THE OUTER HEBRIDES, AND SHETLAND 



AS A NESTING SPECIES, 



With Notes on the Migration of Phai^aropes 



BY J. a. HARVIE-BROWN, F.RS.E. 



It is most interesting to find what may be, presumablj^, an 

 extension of the breeding haunts of this species on the more 

 direct line of its return migration in spring — as recorded by- 

 Mr. Williams in the Irish Nahiralist of February, 1903, pp. 



41-5- 



But I do not quite understand his allusion to it as a ** polar- 

 breeding species, breeding so far south." I have been accus- 

 tomed to consider that the main line of advance to the north 

 in spring was rather westerly of the Outer Hebrides, and that 

 only a contingent of the Red-necked Phalaropes diverged 

 somewhat to the east, to take up the considerable nesting 

 grounds in the west of the Outer Hebrides and in Shetland 

 In this I may be mistaken. 



But in autumn we find more records of the Grey Phalarope 

 on the inner side of the outer isles and down the mainland 

 coast of Scotland. 



Mr. J. H. Gurney, in his paper, speaking of their surprising 

 advent in 1886, found the greatest bulking of the records along 

 the south coast of England ; and Ussher and Barrington record 

 almost similir autjimn migration bulking well south on the 

 Irish coasts in other years, notably in 1891. 



Though Mr. Williams's notes refer to the west of Ireland 

 under the Red-necked Phalarope as a 7iesting species, the 

 migration of both the Red-necked and the Grey Phalarope is 

 not the less (but rather the more) interesting to us Scottish 

 recorders, and can scarcely fail also to be of interest to 

 English ornithologists. 



In time, no doubt; we will be able to pick up the links of 

 the migration of both species ; but before that can be done 

 satisfactorily, we must learn more of the spring as well as of 

 the autumn migration. 



