2 BULLETIN" 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



wind off the ice and a drizzling rain. From the ship we could see waves 

 of birds rising some distance off in such dense flocks that individuals could 

 not be distinguished; the mass looked like a long, thin cloud swirling before 

 the wind; one end of the line rose high in the air, while the other end swerved 

 nearer to the water. They swung about with the erratic movements and wave- 

 like flight so characteristic of black skimmers, now high in the air, again low 

 over the water. As we worked along the shore, thousands that were feeding 

 close along the beach rose and flew across the sand spit in front of us. 

 There was a continual stream of them drifting by, like so much sand before 

 a strong wind. They were, at this time, beginning to molt their breeding 

 plumage. 



Spring. — The migrations of the red phalarope are mainly at sea, 

 usually far out from land. During the month of May enormous 

 flocks may be seen on the ocean off the coasts of New England, but it 

 is only during stress of weather that they are driven inshore. I can 

 well remember a big storm, on May 21, 1892, which brought a large 

 flight of these birds into Cape Cod Bay; Nat Gould killed a large 

 number that day on Monomoy Island and I shot one at Plymouth 

 Beach; others were taken at Provincetown. In pleasant weather 

 these birds are well at home on the heaving bosom of the ocean, 

 flying about in flocks, twisting, turning, and wheeling like flocks of 

 sandpipers, or resting or feeding on the drifting rafts of seaweeds. 

 On the Pacific coast these birds are even more abundant, if one 

 goes far enough offshore to see them during April and May. They 

 often congregate in considerable numbers about the Farallon Islands. 

 W. Leon Dawson (1923) has drawn a graphic picture of them there, 

 as follows : 



Here in late spring thousands of these birds ride at anchor in the lee of 

 the main island, along with other thousands of the other northern species, 

 Lobipes lobatu*. Of these some few scores are driven ashore by hunger and 

 seek their sustenance in brackish pools, or else battle with the breakers in 

 the little " bight " of the rocky lee shore. The date is May 23, and the com- 

 pany under survey numbers a few brilliant red birds in high plumage among 

 the scores in unchanged gray, together with others exhibiting every inter- 

 mediate gradation. When to this variety is added a similar diversity among 

 the northerns, which mingle indiscriminately with them, you have a motley 

 company — no two birds alike. Ho! but these are agile surfmen! Never, 

 save in the case of the wandering tattler and the American dipper, have I seen 

 such absolute disregard of danger and such instant adjustment to watery 

 circumstance. Here are 30 of these phalaropes " fine mixed," threading a nar- 

 row passage in the reefs where danger threatens in the minutest fraction of 

 a second. Crash ! comes a comber. Our little world is obliterated in foam. 

 Sea anemones and rock oysters sputter and choke, and there is a fine fury 

 of readjustment. But the phalaropes rise automatically, clear the crest of 

 the crasher, and are down again, preening their feathers or snatching dainties 

 with the utmost unconcern. Now a bird is left stranded on a reef, or now 

 he is whisked and whirled a dozen feet away. All right, if he likes it; 

 but if not, he is back again, automatically, at the old rendezvous. Life goes 

 on right merrily in spite of these shocking interruptions. Food getting is the 



