4 SCOLOPACID^. 



the commonest birds, remaining till late in October, when the sea begins 

 to close. They arrive early in June in considerable numbers, and already 

 paired, in full breeding-plumage. As with Phalaropes generally, the female is 

 the larger and brighter bird of the pair. We found it hard to make the natives 

 believe that she was not the male. Dissection, actually showing the eggs in the 

 ovary, was necessary before they would admit the fact. 



" The whole duty of raising and taking care of the brood after the eggs are 

 laid falls upon the males, who hatch the eggs and take care of the young brood, 

 while the female spends her time away feeding. We never found a female sitting 

 on eggs or took one with her breast plucked. It was invariably the male bird 

 that was started off the eggs. 



" When these birds first arrive the sea is still closed, and the birds make 

 themselves at home especially round the small ponds. As the snow melts away, 

 they spread out over a greater extent of country, but never go far from the sea, 

 and are always to be found in the wetter grassy portions of the tundra, particularly 

 back of the beach lagoons, where they nest in large numbers. 



" The nest is always in the grass, never in the black or mossy portions of the 

 tundra, and usually in a pretty wet situation, though a nest was occasionally found 

 high and dry, in a place where the nest of the Pectoral Sandpiper would be looked 

 for. A favorite nesting site was a narrow grassy isthmus between two of the shallow 

 ponds. A nest is a very slight affair of dried grass and always well concealed. 



" Some of the pairs have their fuU complement of eggs laid by the middle of 

 June, but others are much later, as fresh eggs were obtained as late as June 29 in 

 1882. Four is the usual number of eggs in a complete set, although sets of three 

 incubated eggs are to be found. 



"They are exceedingly tame and attractive little birds during the breeding- 

 season, paddling about the little ponds on the tundra in their peculiarly graceful 

 manner, having apparently no fear of man or beast, and keeping up a continual 

 twittering, as if of conversation among themselves. They are at all times a noisy 

 bird, especially when gathered into flocks." 



Mr. Seebohm states that the eggs of this species "vary in length from 1-28 

 to 1-2 inch, and in breadth from -9 to -85 inch." * 



Mr. H. E. Dresser states that he possesses twenty' eggs of this Phalarope, 

 taken at Egedesminde and Upernavik, Greenland, the measurements of which 

 vary from 1-27 by -87 inch to 1-07 by -82 inch.f 



* ' History of British Birds,' vol. iii. p. 87. 



t ' History of the Birds of Europe,' vol. vii. p. 610. 



