176 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Incubation is performed mostly, if not entirely, by the 

 male. I flushed females off nests on two occasions, but 

 in one case the full complement of eggs was not yet laid, 

 and in the other I think they were only newly laid. The 

 ground-colour of the eggs varied from stone to olive, and 

 in one nest all four eggs were remarkably rotund. They 

 take some eighteen days to hatch, and only one brood is 

 hatched in the season, though if the first sitting is des- 

 troyed the bird will lay again. The nestlings, although 

 they cannot fly for some days, are wonderfully precocious, 

 and can swim immediately. Their beautiful golden downy 

 plumage becomes paler and paler, even after the first 

 twenty-four hours. 



When the nest contains eggs the female bird shows 

 the greatest anxiety. She can be seen swimming about 

 in the pools ; or, rising without any splash, flying up and 

 down quite close to one, uttering a low cry of "plip, plip," 

 varied by a hoarse " chiss-ick." This cry warns the male, 

 which never flies off the nest, but always creeps through 

 the grass and rushes, to some pool, near one of which the 

 nest is invariably placed. Here he will soon be joined by 

 the female, and they will swim about trying to hide their 

 anxiety by preening their feathers or pretending to feed. 

 Their food consists of small w^orms, tiny animalculoe, 

 insects, and flies, which they pick off the leaves of the 

 bog-bean. The tameness of the Red-necked Phalarope is 

 of course well known, but the following example may 

 perhaps be given. I found a nest containing three 

 nestlings just hatched, and a friend who was with me took 

 one in his hand and held it on the grass. The male 

 Phalarope came running up to it " clucking " like a 

 brooding fowl, in response to the very feeble " cheeps " of 

 the nestling. The female, meanwhile, never came near us, 

 but swam about on a pool some thirty yards off. 



I was much struck with the variation in the plumage of 

 some of the birds, some females having the I'ed gorget far 

 more pronounced than others. One pair of birds I noticed 

 on my second visit as most peculiar. They had white 



