194 BRITISH BIRDS' NESTS. 



egg. Local and other names : Mother Carey's 

 Chicken, Stormy Petrel, Little Petrel, Witch, 

 Allamotti, Sea Swallow, Spency, Assilag, Mitty. 

 Sits very closely. 



PHALAROPE, RED-NECKED. 



Description of Parent Birds. Length from seven 

 to eight inches. Bill of medium length, straight, 

 slender, and black. Irides dark brown. Head, hind 

 part of neck, back, wing-coverts, scapulars, and 

 tertials dark ash-grey, the last two sets of feathers 

 being tipped with rust-colour. Wing-quills dusky, 

 some of them being tipped with white. Bump and 

 upper tail-coverts dusky, banded with white ; tail- 

 quills dusky or brownish-grey, darkest in the centre. 

 Chin white ; front and sides of neck rusty red ; 

 upper breast grey, barred with white ; under-parts 

 white. Some specimens are white from chin to 

 vent. Legs, toes, and membrane down either side 

 of toes, green ; claws black. 



The female is rather larger, and more richly 

 coloured. 



Situation and Locality. On the ground, in 

 tufts of grass, in a hollow on the top of a small 

 hillock ; on moors and mountains not far from the 

 edge of a loch or pool, in the Orkneys, Shetlands, 

 and Hebrides only, according to Mr. Dixon, but 

 according to Mr. Saunders (writing, I ought to 

 mention, ten years earlier), in some parts of the 

 mainland. The latter author was, at the time of 

 writing, doubtful whether the bird had been extir- 

 pated in the Orkneys. However, I have evidence 

 of its nesting there as late as 1892. 



As some evidence of how the bird is gradually 

 being banished from our shores, Mr. Arthur Orde 



