SCOLOPACID^. 435 



louse, something like our wood-louse, which greedily 

 preys on animal substances, as dead floating birds, 

 and is to be met with, with other species, amongst 

 floating sea-weed : the bird takes these both by 

 swimming and by dropping on the water, also from 

 sea-weed and the tidal portions of the coast. It 

 swims light as a cork, gull-fashion, and incessantly 

 keeps nodding its head : it also dives] after its food 

 for a distance of five or six feet." 



The nest is said to be never far from the sea- 

 shore, made in a hollow of the ground and carefully 

 lined with a few grasses, or formed amongst short 

 herbage.* 



Like so many other birds, especially those 

 included in this Order, the Grey Phalarope differs 

 in plumage very materially at different times. 

 Yarrell says the female appears to assume more 

 perfect colours in the breeding-season, and to retain 

 them longer, than the male. A female in fine 

 summer plumage has the beak yellow, the point 

 dark brown ; around the base of the beak and on 

 the top of the head dark brownish black ; irides 

 dark brown ; around the eye is a patch of white ; a 

 narrow stripe down the back of the neck; all the 

 back and rump nearly black, with pale yellow 

 margins ; lesser wing-coverts pale lead grey, edged 

 with white; greater wing-coverts and secondaries 



* Meyer's ' British Birds,' vol. v., p. 118. 



