266 CHARADRITDAL 
“The chick weighed 96 grains; plumage hke a downy 
Dunlin, but down much more golden-yellow about head and 
neck, shading into white on lower parts; two well-marked 
white stripes on a black surface down middle of back. 
Feet inside flesh colour, outer parts dark, toes black, beak 
dark flesh. 
“The male bird, which is much more obscure in the 
colour, had two very large hatching spots on the breast, 
showing that he assists in the duty of incubation; he is 
smaller than the female, and weighed 589 grains. The 
female bird, strange to say, was assuming the winter 
plumage so early as 14th July, and weighed 691 grains.” 
Like the Grey Phalarope, this species is little heedful of 
the presence of man. Many naturalists have noticed how 
unconcernedly it will swim about, nodding its head and 
constantly dipping its beak into the water for food at a few 
yards distance from the observer. The Red-necked Phala- 
rope, like its congener, is gregarious in winter; it swims 
with the same ease and grace, but is seldom met with far 
out at sea. 
Food.—This consists largely of small crabs, shrimps, 
worms, and insects. 
Voice-——The note may be syllabled pleep, pleep, or wit, 
wet, wit (Saunders). 
Flight—The flight resembles that of the Grey Phala- 
rope. 
Nest.—The nest‘ is generally situated in marshy ground 
amid rushes and other aquatic vegetation ; the eggs, four in 
number, somewhat resemble those of the Grey Phalarope, 
but are smaller and more pointed. Like the preceding 
species, the male bird incubates and is courted by the 
female. 
' IT am much indebted to Mr. Barrington for the following account 
of the nesting-haunts of this species, as observed in company with the 
late Mr. EK. Williams, in the West of Ireland in 1904. Mr. Barrington 
writes : “No nest was made, it was merely a rounded depression on a 
little tuft of rushes, which was raised an inch or two (not over six 
inches) above the level of a very wet marsh. The young, when leaving 
the nest, would walk out into the water almost; at any rate, the place 
was so damp that the water would rise over the soles of one’s boots, two 
feet from the nest, and little shallow pools were everywhere about, the 
land being level for an acre or two. It was close to the sea, and perhaps 
at times the water would be brackish where the little streams overflowed 
the land and sandy flats adjoining.”’ 
