EXPEDITION TO POINT i',Ai;i;o\v. ALASKA. 115 



No others wore seen till the first week in July, when two were noticed, one associating with.i 

 flock of Golden Plovers and Knots. One taken at the time was already molting. 



563. PHALAROPU8 FULICARIUS (Liim.) Bp. 



RED PrtALAROPK 



One oi' the commonest birds, remaining till late in October, when the sea begins to close. 

 They arrive early in -lime in considerable numbers, and already paired, in full breeding plumage. 

 As with Phalaropes generally, the female is the larger and brighter bird of the pair. We found 

 it hard to make the natives believe that she was not the male. l)i .--> < lion, actually showing the 

 eggs in the ovary, was necessary before they would admit the fact. 



The whole duty of raising and taking care of the brood after the eggs are laid, falls upon tho 

 males, who hatch the eggs and take care of the young brood, while the female spends her time 

 away feeding. We never found a female sitting on eggs, or took one with her breast plucked. It 

 was invariably the male bird that was started off the eggs. 



When these birds first arrive the sea is still closed, and the birds make themselves at homo 

 especially round the small ponds. As the snow melts away, they spread out over a greater extent 

 of country,, but never go far from the sea, and are always to be found in the wetter grassy portions 

 of the tundra, particularly back of the beach lagoons, where they nest in large numbers. 



The nest is always in the grass, never in tho black or mossy portions of the tundra, and 

 usually iu a pretty wet situation, though a nest was occasionally found high, and dry, in a place 

 where the nest of the Pectoral Sandpiper would be looked for. A favorite nesting site was a nar- 

 row grassy isthmus between two of the shallow ponds. The nest is a very slight affair of dried 

 grass and always well conc-'aicd. 



Some of the pairs have their full complement of eggs laid by the middle of June, but others 

 are much later, as fresh eggs were obtained as late as June 29, in 1882. Four is the usual num- 

 ber of eggs in a complete set, although sets of three incubated eggs are to be found. 



They are exceedingly tame and attractive little, birds during the breeding season, paddling 

 about the little ponds on the tundra in their peculiarly graceful manner, having apparently no fear 

 of man or beast, and keeping up a continual twittering, as if of conversation among themselves. 

 They are at all times a noisy bird, especially when gathered into flocks. 



They begin to collect in flocks, Hying and lighting round the ponds, about the end of June, 

 and continue in llocks through July, though as the sea opens they grow scarce, apparently roam- 

 ing off inland, and out to sea. Late in July, when there were hardly any to be seen near the shore, 

 I have found th.-m 7 or 8 miles inland around the lakes in very large flocks, which were gradually 

 assuming the gray winter plumage. The natives said that the Phalaropes went "south," which 

 means "inland," and they would be plenty by and by. The adults appear to leave about the end 

 of July, as the great flocks which stay so late in the fall seem to be all the young of the year. 



These, Hocks come off the land about the first week in August, and are to be found along the 

 shore and beach, occasionally feeding and swimming in the ponds back of the beach. Their abun- 

 dance varies a great deal on different days, as they are apparently wandering back and forth a 

 good deal from one feeding ground to another. They are apt to be specially abundant on days 

 when then; is much loose ice on and near the ohore. 



When in the fall plumage and collected into flocks, they spend most of the time floating and 

 feeding with their peculiarly graceful dipping motion a few yards from the beach, while a flock 

 will occasionally rise with a sharp twitter and move a few hundred yards to anew feeding ground. 



They are exceedingly tame and unsuspicious at all seasons, and the Eskimo boys, although. 

 their archery is none of the best, succeed in killing a good many of them with their bows and 

 arrows. 



564. LOBIPES HYPERBOP.EUS (Linn.) Cuv. 

 SOUTHERN PHALAKOVK (SY</>ra'i7m<). 



Mr. Nelson has already noted the increasing rarity of this species as we proceed' towards tho 

 north in the Arctic Ocean, although it is the more abundant of the two Phalaropes on tlie shores 



