AVOCETS AND STILTS 



221 



Though i ha\e met the other two kiiuls of 

 l'hahirn[)es nut on the open Atlantic well otf- 

 .shore. to Inid Wilson's Phalarope one has to 

 journey to the northwest interior. There I ha\e 

 found these beautiful, s^entle birds breeding^ 

 beside the marshy sloughs of North Dakota, 

 Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. The best-known, 

 most widely advertised peculiarity of Phalaropes 

 is their family relationshijj. The female is the 

 larger and brighter-colored, and is said to do the 

 courting; the demure little male — mere man — 

 incubates the eggs and cares for the young, while 

 the wives flock together in the sloughs as though 

 they had organized women's clubs or other social 

 coteries. Thus I have watched parties of these 

 giddy little ladies sporting about, and then, tramp- 

 ing through the meadow grass on the prairie a 

 few rods back from some other slough, have 

 flushed the male from the nest so well hidden in 

 the grass. The four eggs are decidedly pointed 

 and are very boldly and thickly streaked with 

 black. 



To the credit of the female it must be said that 

 she is not entirely without the heart of the 

 mother. The cries of her husband, in times of 

 seeming danger, soon bring her to the rescue, and 

 she runs or flies about with him, scolding, though 

 he usually leads in the performance of the vari- 

 ous protestations. 



On one occasion, during the spring migration, 

 in early June, I met a considerable flock of 

 Northern Phalaropes on a shallow alkaline 

 slough in northern Manit<;)ba, but at the most I 

 have only seen Wilson's Phalarope in small ])ar- 



ties. Like all the tribe these are graceful in 

 e\ erv motion, notably ui swimming, bobbing 

 their heads and necks prettily forward as they 

 progress. 



Despite the above reversals of social usage, 

 the female is far from being a virago. The birds 



Phuto by H 1 Cuurtesy of OutiniJ Pub. Co. 



WILSON'S PHALAROPE 



The male of this species attends to the work of raising the family 



are gentle in manner and inconspicuous, and the 

 average person passing through their haunts prob- 

 alily would not notice them. Though small, the\' 

 are, like other shore birds, swift and strong in 

 flight, and in winter they journey as far south as 

 Chile and -\rgentina. 



Herbert K. Job. 



AVOCETS AND STILTS 



Order Liniicolcc ; family Rcciiroirostiida; 



HE Avocets and Stilts include eleven or twelve species which occur, usually 

 in flocks, throughout the warmer regions of the world. As a family they are 

 comparatively large birds, and have exceedingly long legs, long necks, and 

 long, slender bills, curved more or less upward, in which the nostrils are set 

 within the quarter nearest the base. 



Of the Avocets, there are four species, one occurring in North America, 

 another in South Ainerica, a third in Europe, and a fourth in Australia. Each 

 of these has a rudimentary hind toe, and the front toes webbed, in which latter 

 respect they differ from most wading birds. Their wings are rather short 

 and their tails are short and sc]uare. Their plumage is thick and duck-like. 

 They feed on aquatic insects, shellfish, and the like, which they capture chiefly 

 in shallow water by sweeping the bill from side to side with a movement which suggests 

 the swinging of a scythe. The Avocets swim easily, when they need to, and usually are 

 comparatively tame. They are from fifteen to eighteen inches long and in coloration are 

 generally black and white, with the legs of a bluish tinge. They build rude nests on the 



