BIRDS OF ICELAND 93 



Grey Phalarope is comparatively common. Feet lobed 

 — like those of the last species. 



When calling this bird common everywhere, I 

 perhaps ought to qualify it by saying that at very 

 high elevations (like the ArnarvatnsheiSi and other 

 elevated plateaux), it is not abundant, though it cannot 

 either be called rare. It is, unlike the last species, a 

 fresh-water feeder by choice ; it prefers tarns and lakes 

 to rivers, and its chief food in the breeding season 

 seems to be (I have watched it feeding many and many 

 a time, sometimes not two yards away from me) that 

 particularly offensive small grey-black fly, which is 

 found by all river-, and especially lake-sides in Iceland 

 in the summer, and which, particularly at times and 

 in certain places, is capable of making life almost un- 

 bearable to human beings and their ponies. ' Expertus 

 loquor.' The Eed-necked Phalarope catches these 

 noxious little pests on the wing (making pretty little 

 darts when so doing), picks them off the rushes, and also 

 feeds on the aquatic larvte ; the insect is to be found in 

 the bird's oesophagus and gizzard in both stages, and 

 forms, at that time, its principal food. It also eats 

 any small living aquatic creatures, and I have found 

 small mollusca (tiny Limnceas) mixed with the eaten 

 food. The Pted- necked Phalarope swims well and 

 buoyantly, and looks on the water like a diminutive 

 duck. 



