688 REPORT OP STATE GEOLOGIST. 



The following notes are taken from the interesting account of this 

 bird in its summer home along the Arctic seas by Mr. E. W. Nelson: 



"This handsome Phalarope arrives at the Yukon mouth and adjacent 

 parts of the Bering Sea coast during the last few days of May or first 

 of June, according to the season. It is a common summer resident at 

 Point Barrow, where it arrives early in June and remains till the sea 

 closes, in October. For a week or two after its arrival fifty or more 

 flock together. In the morning, after the birds were paired, they 

 could be found scattered here and there by twos over the slightly 

 flooded grassy flats. At times these pairs would rise and fly a short 

 distance, the female in advance, and uttering now and then a low and 

 musical 'clink, clink/ sounding very much like the noise made by 

 lightly tapping together two small bars of steel. A little later in the 

 day, their hunger being satisfied, they begin to unite into parties, 

 until fifteen or twenty birds would rise and pursue an erratic course 

 over the flat. As they passed swiftly along, others would join them, 

 until the number would be increased to two hundred or four hundred, 

 perhaps. During all their motions the entire flock moves with such 

 unison that the alternate flashing of the under side of the wings and 

 the dark color of the back, like the play of light and shade, makes a 

 beautiful spectacle. Very early in June the females have each paid 

 their court and won a shy and gentle mate to share their coming cares. 

 The eggs are laid in a slight depression, generally on the damp flats, 

 where the birds are found. There is rarely any lining to the nest. To- 

 ward the end of June most of the young are hatched, and by the mid- 

 dle of July are on the wing. Soon after the young take wing these 

 birds, gathering in flocks, frequent the sea, They breed all along the 

 Arctic shores of Alaska and Siberia, wherever suitable flats occur, and 

 even reach those isolated islands forever encircled by ice, which lie 

 beyond" (Natural History Coll. in Alaska,' pp. 97, 98). 



43. GENUS PHALAROPUS BRISSOX. 



a 1 . Membranes of toes scalloped; wing under 4.50. Subgenus PHALAROPUS. 



P. lobatus (Linn.). 85 



a 2 . Membranes of toes not scalloped; wing over 4.50. Subgenus STEGAXOPUS 

 Vieillot. P. tricolor (Vieill.). 86 



Foot of Northern Phalarope. 



