10 BULLETIN" 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



he would remain with breast down and pick at the flies much as a dusting fowl 

 picks up a stray grain. Mr. L. E. Wyman reported similar " breast to ground " 

 actions of two phalaropes he saw feeding by a kelp mass on the beach. 



Alexander Wetmore (1925), in his report on the food of the red 

 phalarope, analyzed the contents of 36 stomachs, mainly from the 

 Pribilof Islands, with some from New York and Maine; they were 

 collected from May to November, but mainly in August. Crusta- 

 ceans made up 33.5 per cent of the food; beetles amounted to 27.3 

 per cent; flies formed 22.7 per cent; and 6.8 per cent consisted of 

 tiny fishes, mostly sculpins. The food of this species therefore 

 shows it to be harmless or neutral. 



Behavior. — Phalaropes are active, lively birds in all their move- 

 ments and they seem to be constantly on the move. They are all 

 rapid fliers and this species is decidedly the swiftest on the wing of 

 all three. As the restless flocks move about over the water, their 

 aerial evolutions are well worth watching. Lucien M. Turner, in his 

 Labrador notes, writes that he has seen them " ascend to a great 

 height in increasing circles, darting in and out among each other 

 and making a peculiar twitter as they ascend. When some suitable 

 locality is discerned these birds descend almost perpendicularly and 

 drop on the water as softly as a feather." They are so much like 

 sandpipers in appearance and in manner of flight that one is always 

 surprised to see them alight on the water. 



Perhaps even more surprising than their peculiar marital relations 

 are their aquatic habits. Their semipalmated and lobed toes are 

 well adapted for swimming and the thick, compact plumage of 

 their under parts protects them and buoys them up on the water. 

 They float as lightly as corks, or as freshly fallen autumn leaves on 

 a woodland pool, swimming swiftly and whirling rapidly, undis- 

 turbed by rushing currents or by foaming breakers. William Brew- 

 ster (1925) has well described the behavior of a red phalarope on 

 an inland stream at Umbagog Lake, Me. ; he writes : 



I strolled across a suspension footbridge that spans Bear River here, a shal- 

 low stream rippling over a rocky bed scarce 50 feet in width, beneath over- 

 hanging yellow birches and other deciduous trees. Returning a few minutes 

 later I had reached the middle of the bridge when a grayish bird started di- 

 rectly under it and flew off down stream for a few rods, skimming close to the 

 water and uttering a sharp whit, whit, which reminded me of the call of a 

 spotted sandpiper concerned for the safety of its young. Almost at the first 

 glance I recognized the bird as a red phalarope whose presence in such a place 

 surprised me greatly, of course. Alighting, again, in the middle of the river 

 it floated buoyantly and stemmed the swift current with apparent ease, although 

 avoiding such exertion, whenever possible, by taking advantage of backward- 

 flowing eddies. Presently it began working around the bases of some large 

 boulders where it seemed to be obtaining abundant food by pecking rapidly 

 and incessantly at their rough flanks, wetted by lapping waves. It also fed 

 on the surface of the swirling eddies, paddling about very rapidly and in 



