102 NORTH CAROLINA 



circumpolar species, the presence of which 

 in unusual numbers off our Atlantic coast 

 was recorded by other observers in the 

 spring of 1892. My bird here in North 

 Carolina, if I read its characters correctly, 

 was of the third species of the family, Wil- 

 son's phalarope, larger and handsomer than 

 the others ; an inland bird, peculiar to the 

 American continent, breeding in the upper 

 Mississippi Valley and farther north, and 

 occurring in our Eastern country only as a 

 straggler. 



That was a lucky hour, an hour worth a 

 long journey, and worthy of long remem- 

 brance. It brought me, as I began by say- 

 ing, a new bird and a new family ; a family 

 distinguished not more for its grace and 

 beauty than for the strangeness — the " new- 

 ness," as to-day's word is — of its domestic 

 relations ; for the female phalarope not only 

 dresses more handsomely than the male, but 

 is larger, and in a general way assumes the 

 rights of superiority. She does the court- 

 ing — openly and ostensibly, I mean — and, 

 if the books are to be trusted, leaves to 

 her mate the homely, plumage-dulling labor 

 of sitting upon the eggs. And why not? 



