230 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



History. 



Wilson's Phalarope is mainly an inland species, and always 

 was considered a very rare migrant on our coast. Audubon 

 records the capture of one near Boston, in the winter, but 

 does not give the date. One was taken by Mr. George O. 

 Welch at Nahant, on May 2, 1874, and is now in the collec- 

 tion of the Boston Society of Natural History.^ 

 Another was taken by Mackay, August 31, 1889, 

 on Nantucket.^ I have seen several specimens 

 that were said to have been taken on the Mas- 

 sachusetts coast, but could not verify this. 

 This species has been taken in Maine, Connect- 

 FiG. i4.-Footof wii- icut and New York. 



son's Phalarope. ,,,, • i • i i i i t • 



Ihis bird, when on land or wadmg m w^ater, 

 moves about much in the manner of the Yellow-legs. It is more 

 a wader and less a swimmer than the other two, and keeps mainly 

 to the interior of the continent. Audubon killed several speci- 

 mens near Lake Erie, and found their stomachs filled "with 

 small worms and fragments of very delicate shells." 



AVOCETS AND STILTS. 



These birds comprise the singular family RecurvirostridoB, 

 so named because of the peculiar, flattened, upturned beaks 

 of the Avocets. This is a small family in which the front toes 

 are webbed or partly webbed and the legs, particularly in the 

 Stilts, are exceedingly long and slender, but nevertheless the 

 birds are handsome and graceful. The Avocets have the body 

 flattened and the plumage thick and Duck-like. 



The bills of Avocets seem to vary somewhat in form, if we 

 may judge from dried skins and the drawings of ornithologists. 

 Some have a clean upward curve; others have a slight double 

 curve, as is represented in the illustration of the Avocet on 

 the next page. Some Stilts have the bill nearly straight, 

 while others show a distinct upward curve. The birds of this 

 family have the feet more or less webbed, and swim well. 



1 Baird, S. F., Brewer, T. M., and Ridgway, R.: Water Birds, 1884, Vol. I, p. 338. 



2 Mackay, George H.: Auk, 1891, p. 120. 



