SCOLOPACID^. 



549 



•^is- ^^■c^S'^sr 



THE GREY PHALAROPE. 



Phalaropus fulicarius (Linnreus). 



The Grey Phalarope owes its trivial name to the plumage in 

 which it usually visits us, for during the breeding-season the pre- 

 vailing colour is deep chestnut. At irregular intervals — chiefly in 

 autumn and winter, though occasionally in spring — it makes its 

 appearance upon the shores of England, the favoured counties 

 being those to the southeast, south and, in a less degree, the south- 

 west. Mr. J. H. Gurney jun. estimates that during the great 

 immigration between August 20th and October 8th 1866, upwards 

 of 500 were slaughtered, and of these about 250 in Sussex, few 

 birds touching the coast to the north of Ramsgate. A visitation of 

 some importance in 1869 was almost confined to the south, as was 

 also a smaller one in the autumn of 1886. On the east of England 

 this Phalarope seldom alights above Norfolk, but in Scotland, accord- 

 ing to Gray, it visits all the shores from Berwick to the Orkneys ; it 

 is, however, seldom met with in Sutherland and has not yet been 

 recorded from the Outer Hebrides, though found within their line. 

 In Ireland it is rare ; a few were obtained in the south in the 

 autumn of 1886. Many individuals of this tame and confiding 

 species have been killed far inland by the side of lakes or ponds ; 



