THE WILSON PHALAROPE. in “9 
boots cease to splash, but still make a noise like bovine osculation, I 
came upon the Wilson Phalarope—two of him and two of her. The 
male bird doesn’t count in Phalarope society, at least when it comes to 
voting. 
The birds were evidently paired and, as manifestly, had local attach- 
ments for that particular stretch of grass and weeds and ooze. One 
pair lit near me as I was photographing a Black Tern’s nest, and the 
male began to poke about in the reeds, like a hen that has forgotten, 
or pretends to have forgotten, the precise location of her nest. ‘The fe- 
male dogged his steps and he occasionally chased her off in a petulant 
way, precisely as a female of any more rational species would have done 
under like circumstances. Finally, the male housewife disappeared in a 
certain clump toward which he had already twice feinted. The female 
came to a standstill and mounted guard for as much as ten minutes. The 
situation was perfectly clear from an oodlogical standpoint. The eggs 
were being covered until it suited my pleasure to claim them. Imagine 
my surprise, therefore, when the female suddenly flitted over the weeds 
to a more distant clump, to which her dutiful spouse had sneaked, routed 
him out and made off with him to parts unknown. 
On succeeding days I raked that neck of the swamp with a fine-toothed 
comb, but all to no avail. The birds came and went without rhyme or 
reason, now one, now two, and now all four at once, from I knew not 
where, and disappeared again as mysteriously. If they lighted, the reeds 
swallowed them up; if they flew, they did it in a demure way which was 
a rebuke to curiosity. In flying, a bird would sometimes give voice to its 
disquiet in a sort of hoarse, barking note, a rough monosyllable, wib, which 
was also occasionally subdued to a mellow croak, oont. This was often a 
summons, and if uttered by a single bird aloft, would serve to rouse its 
mate from some recess of the grass; whereupon both would flit away, as 
tho renouncing all claim to that locality. 
As it happened once, so it happened a dozen times; and a like experi- 
ence befell upon each of two succeeding Junes, when, with another ex- 
perienced bird-man, I returned to the quest. The same(?) four birds 
were there, riveted in interest to the same locality. They came and went 
in the same mysterious, casual fashion. They treated us with the same 
studious neglect. And as to thei nesting habits we are never a whit the 
wiser. Wherefore, I repeat, these be most exasperating fowls! Also, we 
resign our claim upon them. If any one is curious to follow their fortunes, 
we will cheerfully furnish the street and number where this disappearance 
syndicate was last heard from; viz., Grassrue 23, Weedstem 13. 
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