150 HISTORY OF THE 



lock, like hungry liogs, often leaping out of the water in their 

 eager haste to catch the herrings, and the gulls screaming and 

 swooping down for their share, make up a wild and exciting 

 scene in the never-ending struggle for life, the strong preying 

 upon the weak. And late in May, 1882, while out in a sealing 

 schooner off Cape Flattery, I saw several small flocks, two of 

 which were over one hundred miles from the shore. Their nests 

 are placed in depressions in the ground (usually near the water), 

 and occasionally sparingly lined with grasses. Eggs l.lOx. 80; 

 usually four, varying in color from olive green to buffy olive 

 brown, rather thickly but irregularly spotted and blotched with 

 sepia to blackish brown; in shape, rather pyriform. A set of 

 three eggs, taken July 2d, 1884, by Mr. Robert MacFarlane, at 

 Anderson River, Arctic America, measure: 1.09x. 79, l.lOx. 78, 

 1.12X.80. 



Subgenus STEGANOPUS Vieillot. 

 "Bill slender and subulate, with strictly basal nostrils, as m Lobipes; web 

 between outer and middle toes not reaching to second joint, the lateral mem- 

 brane of all the toes narrow and scarcely scalloped." 



Phalaropus tricolor (Vieill.). 



WILSON'S PHALAROPB. 

 PLATE X. 



Summer resident; rare; in migration, common. Arrive the 

 last of April to first of May; begin laying the last of May to 

 first of June; return usually in September. June 8th, 1886, I 

 found three pairs of these birds breeding on marsliy grounds, 

 bordering a slough or pond of Crooked Creek, Meade county. 



B. 519. R. 565. C. 602. G. 265. 70. U. 224. 



Habitat. Temperate North America, but chiefly in the inte- 

 rior; north to Nova Scotia, Maine, Saskatchewan and Oregon; 

 south during migration to J3razil and Patagonia; breeding from 

 Kansas northward, cliiefly north of 40°. 



Sp. Chak. *■*■ Adult female, in summer. Forehead and crown pale pearl gray, 

 the former with a blackish line on each side; occiput and nape white, changing 

 to plumbeous gray on the back and scapulars. Stripe on the side of the head 

 (chiefly back of the ej'e), and continued down the side of the neck, deep black, 

 changing on the lower part of the neck into rich dark chestnut — this extending 

 backward more interruptedly on each side of the interscapular region; outer 

 scapulars marked with a similar stripe. A short stripe above the lores and ej'es 



