STEGANOPUS WILSONI : WILSON'S PHALAROPE. 185 



Bill, blackish, about i.io long; legs, dull yellow (tarsus, 1.20; 

 middle toe and claw, 1.05). Upper parts, including crown and 

 upper surface of wings, brownish-black, each feather edged with 

 rusty-brown, very conspicuous on the long inner secondaries, 

 and giving a general aspect like that of a Sandpiper of the genus 

 Actodromas. Upper tail-coverts pure white. Tail clear ash, 

 edged and much marbled with white, the ash darker at its line 

 of demarcation from the white. Line over eye, and whole under 

 parts, white, the breast with a faint rusty tinge, and the sides 

 slightly marbled with gray. Quills dusky, the secondaries white- 

 edged, and the shafts of the primaries whitish. This stage is of 

 extremely brief duration, beginning to give way, almost as soon 

 as the bird is full grown, to the clear uniform ashy of the upper 

 parts of the fall and winter condition. The change in some spe- 

 cimens shot early in August is already very evident, clear ashy 

 feathers being mixed, on the crown and all the upper parts, with 

 such as just described. Size of the smallest specimen only 8.25 

 in length by 14.50 in extent ; wing, 4.60. 



Several wading birds, properly so classed, furnish ex- 

 ceptions to the rule that these birds have but slight 

 powers of swimming, only exercised in an emergency. 

 The Avocet is a fair swimmer, the toes being nearly full- 

 webbed ; still better swimmers are the Coots and Phala- 

 ropes, birds not very closely allied, yet alike fitted for highly 

 aquatic life and habitual swimming by the presence of 

 broad lobes on the toes. Phalaropes are swimming 

 Sandpipers with the modification of the feet just men- 

 tioned, a thin shank to cut the water, a depressed boat- 

 shaped body to rest upon it, and thickened, duck-like 

 under plumage to prevent wetting of the body. Not 

 one of the waders surpasses the Phalaropes in ease and 

 variety of movement, grace and elegance of form, or 

 beauty of color when in perfect plumage ; and Wilson's 

 Phalarope is the most beautiful of them all. Their 

 domestic relations, however, are simply scandalous. The 



