



GREY PHALAROPE. 131 



THIS pretty species, remarkable for the great difference 

 of its red appearance when 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 onr 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 

 Major 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 Dr. 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 com- 

 pact, 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 

 their southern winter quarters. They are also, for the 

 most part, young birds of the year, in various stages of 

 change towards the pure and delicate grey colour of the 



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