214 BIRDS OF MIDDLESEX. 



the habits of the Grey Phalarope are but little known, 

 and, so far as I am aware, no authentic specimens 

 of its eggs have been received in this country. Mr. 

 Bullock, in a letter to Col. Montagu, referring to 

 the Rednecked Phalarope,* a bird, it is presumed, 

 of very similar habits, says : " It swims with the 

 greatest ease, and, when on the water, looks like a 

 beautiful miniature of a Duck, carrying its head 

 close to the back, in the manner of a Teal." 



In the ' Zoological Journal' for April, 1825, Mr. 

 Yarrell has recorded the fact that a Grey Phalarope 

 was shot while swimming on the Thames, near 

 Battersea, in November, 1824. It was seen there 

 by a gardener, who went home, a distance of a 

 mile and a half to fetch his gun, and, on his 

 return, found the bird still swimming and feeding 

 near the same spot. " It proved to be an old female, 

 having nearly completed its winter plumage, but 

 still bearing sufficient marks of its summer dress to 

 form an interesting state of change." Mr. Bond shot 

 a pair of Grey Phalaropes at Kingsbury Reservoir, 

 in September, 1841, killing the female on the 28th 

 and the male on the 30th of that month ; and I learn 

 from Mr. Spencer that his brother shot two birds of 

 this species, at the same sheet of water, in the autumn 



* This bird, although commoner in some parts of Britain 

 than the Grey Phalarope, and breeding in limited numbers 

 in the Orkneys, has not been met with in Middlesex. 



