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430 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
Famitry PHALAROPODIDA. Tue PHALAROPES. 
Feathers of breast compact, duck-like; legs with transverse scutelle before and 
behind; toes to the tips with a lateral margin, more or less indented at the joints, 
the hinder with a feeble lobe; bill equal to or longer than the head, the lateral groove 
extending nearly to the tip. 
PHALAROPUS, Brisson. 
Membrane of toes scolloped at the joints. 
PHALAROPUS HYPERBOREUS. — Temm. 
The Northern Phalarope. 
Tringa hyperborea, Linnzeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 249. 
Phalaropus hyperboreus, Temm. Man., II. (1820) 709. Aud. Orn. Biog., III. 
(1835) 118; V. 595. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Bill short, straight, pointed; wings long; tail short; legs short. 
Adult.— Neck encircled with a ring of bright-ferruginous, and a stripe of the 
same on each side; head above and neck behind sooty-ash; back, wings, and tail, 
brownish-black, paler on the rump, mixed with bright-ferruginous on the back; tips 
of greater wing coverts white; sides and flanks ashy, frequently mixed with red- 
dish; throat, breast, and abdomen white; bill and legs dark; iris dark-brown. 
Young. — Entire upper parts brownish-black; many feathers edged and tipped 
with dull yellow and ashy; under parts white; tips of greater wing coverts white. 
Total length, about seven inches; wing, four and half; tail, two and a quarter; 
bill, one; tarsus, three-fourths of an inch. 
HE Northern Phalarope is rarely found on the seacoast 
of New England in the spring and autumn migrations ; 
appearing in the former about the 10th of May, and in the 
latter about the 25th of August. The migrations are per- 
formed by the birds in small flocks out at sea; and it is only 
when they are driven into shore by heavy winds and storms 
that they are found here, and then scarcely more than two or 
three birds are taken in a season. This species is equally a 
swimmer and wader. When on the water, it has the appear- 
ance of a small Gull or Tern, swimming with great elegance 
