SHORTER-BILLED RUNNING BIRDS. 245 



eggs be in the nest, the birds, though under obser- 

 vation, swim about or feed apparently with little 

 concern. But any one who knows the Moorhen, 

 and birds of the Plover and Snipe kinds, also knows 

 that those particles of food snapped up under such 

 conditions with such nervous haste and frequency 

 are purely imaginary. If there be young, it is the 

 male who rushes about crying with the solicitude 

 which goes with his strangely inverted functions. 

 Most of our shore running birds can swim if put 

 to it, but none but Phalaropes do so habitually, and 

 none have their lobed feet, a characteristic indicating 

 swimming powers. 



GRAY PHALAROPE— 8 inches. A fairly regular autumn 

 visitor in small numbers, though occasionally in very 

 large ones, to the south-eastern shores of England, and 

 to the Scotch coasts from Berwick to the Orkneys. A 

 circumpolar breeder, with plumage largely chestnut in 

 summer, it comes to us in its gray winter plumage, being 

 at that time gray above, with a black nape ; the wings 

 dark, with a white wing-bar ; forehead and under parts 

 from chin to tail white ; bill flat, rather wide ; legs and 

 feet olive. 



PHEASANT.— 37 inches. Head and neck green, 

 with bronze and purple gloss ; sides of head bright 

 red ; remainder of plumage of a generally brown 

 colour, but highly variegated both as to the sub- 

 tones of colour and the many minute markings that 

 diversify it ; long, pointed tail. Female : an alto- 

 gether plainer, browner, and smaller bird, being 

 24 inches. Resident. 



Eggs.— 10-14, pale olive; 1-85 x 1-45 inch (plate 

 132). 



