OCEAN WANDERERS 



occasional flocks of Phalaropes, or " Whale-birds," 

 as the fishermen there call them, during August. 

 Once, in the middle of June, I met a flock of 

 twenty Northern Phalaropes just off Matinicus 

 Rock. But I never had any conception of the 

 abundance of these pretty birds in their migrations 

 until one August, off Cape Sable. The fishermen 

 told me that Hags, Sea-Hens and Mother Carey's 

 Chickens were less plentiful than usual that season, 

 having followed the fish elsewhere, but there were 

 " millions of ' Sea-Geese.' ' From their description 

 I knew that these latter were Phalaropes, and I took 

 an early opportunity to pay them a visit. 



I was fortunate in securing passage on a sub- 

 stantial little eleven-ton schooner, manned by a 

 father and two or three stout sons. It was a nice 

 day with a light breeze, most favourable for the 

 work in hand. We glided from the sandy cove 

 with its wharf and fish-houses, and by the time that 

 the white beaches and green spruce-tracts were 

 becoming dim in the distance, seeming to slide away 

 from us, rather than we from them, we were in the 

 haunts of the Phalaropes. Flocks of them began to 

 fly by, and then we passed flocks in the water, some- 

 times quietly dressing their beautifully smooth 

 plumage, or splashing and frolicking on the smooth 

 ocean surface. Every bunch or patch of drift-weed 

 supported all the Phalaropes it would hold. 



We began our fishing when the land was but 

 dimly in sight. All around us the Phalaropes were 

 flying and sporting, always in flocks of half a dozen 

 or more. Each tiny bird, when at rest, rode lightly 

 and gracefully upon the water, and I was reminded 



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