266 CHAKADEIID/E 



" The chick weighed 96 grains; plumage like a downy 

 Dunlin, but down much more golden-yellow about head and 

 neck, shading into white on lower parts ; two well-marked 

 white stripes on a black surface down middle of back. 

 Feet inside flesh colour, outer parts dark, toes black, beak 

 dark flesh. 



" The male bird, which is much more obscure in the 

 colour, had two very large hatching spots on the breast, 

 showing that he assists in the duty of incubation ; he is 

 smaller than the female, and weighed 589 grains. The 

 female bird, strange to say, was assuming the winter 

 plumage so early as 14th July, and weighed 691 grains." 



Like the Grey Phalarope, this species is little heedful of 

 the presence of man. Many naturalists have noticed how 

 unconcernedly it will swim about, nodding its head and 

 constantly dipping its beak into the water for food at a few 

 yards distance from the observer. The Red-necked Phala- 

 rope, like its congener, is gregarious in winter ; it swims 

 with the same ease and grace, but is seldom met with far 

 out at sea. 



Food. This consists largely of small crabs, shrimps, 

 worms, and insects. 



Voice. The note may be syllabled pleep, pleep, or wit, 

 ivit, wit (Saunders). 



Flight. The flight resembles that of the Grey Phala- 

 rope. 



Nest. The nest 1 is generally situated in marshy ground 

 arnid rushes and other aquatic vegetation ; the eggs, four in 

 number, somewhat resemble those of the Grey Phalarope, 

 but are smaller and more pointed. Like the preceding 

 species, the male bird incubates and is courted by the 

 female. 



1 I am much indebted to Mr. Barrington for the following account 

 of the nesting-haunts of this species, as observed in company with the 

 late Mr. E. Williams, in the West of Ireland in 1904. Mr. Barrington 

 writes : " No nest was made, it was merely a rounded depression on a 

 little tuft of rushes, which was raised an inch or two (not over six 

 inches) above the level of a very wet marsh. The young, when leaving 

 the nest, would walk out into the water almost ; at any rate, the place 

 was so damp that the water would rise over the soles of one's boots, two 

 feet from the nest, and little shallow pools were everywhere about, the 

 land being level for an acre or two. It was close to the sea, and perhaps 

 at times the water would be brackish where the little streams overflowed 

 the land and sandy flats adjoining." 



