252 Cameron, Birds of Custer & Davenport Counties, Mont. [j^ 



36. Porzana Carolina. Sora. — Tolerably common. One killed against 

 telegraph wire (Terry), September 12, 1901.. Another impaled on barbed 

 wire fence (Terry), September 7, 1903. My grayhounds have flushed it 

 from sage-brush, and I have seen it so tame on the spring migration that 

 at first it might have been caught by the hand. There is a small colony 

 nesting in a marsh about two miles east of Terry. I rode there on June 

 18, 1898, and found the nests which were almost in the water of a grass 

 grown pool, difficult to approach. Two contained thirteen and five eggs 

 respectively. Their owners when disturbed creep about in the adjoining 

 long grass and rose brush. 



37. Fulica americana. American Coot. — Tolerably common. Breeds. 

 In October, 1904, a coot in an exhausted condition was picked up on the 

 prairie by Mr. Lance Irvine, which he conveyed to the ranch kitchen where 

 it soon recovered and was liberated. 



38. Phalaropus lobatus. Northern Phalarope. — Occasional migrant, 

 usually in small numbers. On May 21, 1899, an extraordinary invasion 

 of phalaropes occurred at my ranch in Custer County, six miles south 

 of Terry, when examples of both these species and the next continued to 

 arrive in greater or less numbers until the end of the month. At first 

 the Red-necks predominated, and Mr. H. Tusler, whose ranch adjoins 

 mine on the south, and who was the first to observe their advent, brought 

 me three specimens of Phalaropus lobatus on the date above mentioned, 

 shot, as he informed me, out of at least three hundred birds, which included 

 (as I subsequently learned) a few of Steganopus tricolor. All the birds 

 were swimming about in shallow lakes, formed by the recent rains, on the 

 prairie. The relative numbers of the two species were subsequently re- 

 versed, for, the main flight of Red-necks having passed, only a few were 

 afterwards seen sprinkled among the Wilson's Phalaropes, which continued 

 to arrive daily in considerable flocks. Both species frequented the tempo- 

 rary ponds formed by the abundant rains in the depressions of grass-lands, 

 but seemed to shun the regular creeks and water-holes altogether. At 

 the moment of alighting they were so thickly disposed that a large number 

 might have been killed by one shot, but immediately after reaching the 

 surface of the water they scattered in all directions over the pond. The 

 Wilson's Phalaropes, both when feeding and when disturbed and circling 

 on the wing, constantly uttered a low croaking, which at close quarters 

 might be compared to the much louder note of the Sandhill Cranes, or, 

 at a distance, to the faintly heard barking of a dog. On the other hand, 

 I have heard them give a shrill and totally different call of indecision or 

 satisfaction on their first arrival, when hovering above a pool. Both 

 species gave the impression of extraordinary activity as they fed greedily 

 on a species of gnat which swarmed close to the surface of the water. To 

 catch these gnats they swam about with incredible swiftness moving their 

 necks from side to side, or backwards and forward, incessantly. In every 

 flock of Wilson's Phalaropes the females greatly outnumbered the males. 



