312 SCOLOPACID^. 



the south coast. In most instances these beautiful and 

 harmless birds have shown a confidence and want of fear 

 which might have touched the heart of any one except a 

 collector ; it was sometimes difficult to avoid blowing them 

 to pieces, and one bird was actually struck down by a labour- 

 ing man with a spade. 



The breeding haunts of the Grey Phalarope appear to be 

 circumpolar. On Parry's first and second Arctic voyages, 

 it was observed to be abundant during the summer months 

 on the North Georgian and Melville Islands, and found 

 breeding at Iglookik, and Melville Peninsula, on the third 

 voyage; and on the Arctic Expedition of 1875-76, Major 

 Feilden observed a pair apparently breeding in July in 

 82° 30' N. lat. Its breeding range extends across to Alaska, 

 but the majority of the eggs which have been sent to col- 

 lectors of late years come from the district of Upernavik 

 and Egedesminde in Greenland. Its eggs have also been 

 obtained in' Iceland and in Spitsbergen ; it probably nests in 

 Novaya Zemlya ; Middendorff found both eggs and half- 

 fledged young in Northern Siberia; and the " Vega" expe- 

 dition obtained it close to Behring's Straits in June. In 

 Scandinavia it only occurs on migration, with the exception 

 of the southern fiords of Norway, where some winter ; and 

 in Northern Ptussia, the Baltic, in Northern Germany and 

 Belgium, it has seldom been noticed. Its aj^pearances on 

 the French coast are more frequent, and, by the depressions 

 of the Rhine and Rhone valleys, it skirts Switzerland and 

 straggles to Italy and the Mediterranean. Single specimens 

 have been observed or obtained at Santander, Lisbon, and 

 near Cadiz ; also at Tangier in Morocco, in January, by 

 the late Tyrwhitt-Drake ; M. Alleon records it from the 

 Black Sea ; and a few have been obtained inland in Bohemia. 

 It does not seem to migrate by way of the Volga valley, and 

 Severtzoff records it as a rare visitant to the Pamir rsuige. 

 Mr. Hume found it in flocks of about twenty in the Gulf of 

 Oman, and from thence to Bombay, but these individuals, 

 presumably the survivors of the persecution in the north, 

 were by this time extremely wary. A solitary example, still 



