98 SCOLOPACIM. 



toes united as far as the first articulation, the other parts furnished with 

 an extension of the membrane laterally, forming lobes slightly serrated 

 at the edges, the hind toe without membrane, and articulated on the inner 

 side of the tarsus. "Wings moderate ; the first and second quill-feathers 

 the longest. 



THIS pretty species, remarkable for the great difference 

 of its red appearance wfeen in the plumage of summer, 

 compared to its delicate grey colour in winter, and from 

 which latter prevailing tint it derives its name, received 

 an early notice from our countryman and naturalist George 

 Edwards, who figured this bird in its winter plumage in 

 his plate, No. 308, from a specimen killed in Yorkshire, 

 in January, 1757, and another in its summer plumage, 

 plate 142, from a specimen received from Hudson's Bay. 

 Edwards, in his Gleanings in Natural History, called them 

 Coot-footed, from the dilated and lobed membranes of the 

 toes, resembling in structure the same part in the Coot ; 

 and in Papa Westra, according to Dr. Neill, in his Tour 

 through Orkney, the Phalaropes are called Half-webs. 



Such decided swimmers are these Phalaropes, that 

 Colonel Sabine, in his Memoir on the birds of Greenland, 

 mentions having shot one out of a flock of four, on the 

 west coast of Greenland in latitude 68, while they were 

 swimming in the sea amongst icebergs, three or four miles 

 from the shore ; and Sir John Richardson, in his Natural 

 History Appendix to Sir Edward Parry's second Arctic 

 voyage, says, they were observed upon the sea, out of sight 

 of land, preferring to swim out of danger rather than take 

 wing. Their under plumage is also thick and compact, 

 and the bones of the legs flattened like those of the true 

 swimming birds. 



Though formerly a rare bird in this country, since Pen- 

 nant says that he only knew of two instances in which it 

 had occurred in his time, they are now more common, and 

 generally appear in the autumn, when on their way to 



