120 



BIRDS OF NORTH CAROLINA 



Range. Nearly cosmopolitan (on the seas), breeding in Arctic regions and supposed to win- 

 ter far to the south of the equator. 



Range in North Carolina. Reported from the coastal region, off shore. 



C. J. Maynard, in Birds of Eastern North America, published in 1881, refers to 

 seeing Northern Phalaropes along the coast of "the Carolinas," and says they 

 are most common in the ocean just off Pamlico Sound. Their actual capture, how- 

 ever, appears not to have been effected until September 23, 1909, when H. H. Brim- 

 ley found a company of five on White Lake in Bladen County and shot three of 

 these. They were feeding on the water late in the evening of two consecutive days, 

 .and he was enabled to approach in a boat within fifteen yards of them. He describes 

 them as most peculiar birds on the water, darting about on the surface more like 

 insects than birds. 



FIG. 80. NORTHERN PHALAROPE. 



FIG. 81. FOOT OF 

 NORTHERN 

 PHALAROPE. 



Genus Steganopus (Vieill.) 

 99. Steganopus tricolor (Vieill.). WILSON'S PHALAROPE. 



Description: Ad. female in summer. Top of the head and middle of the back pearl-gray, 

 nape white; a black streak passes through eye to side of neck, and, changing to rufous-chestnut, 

 continues down the sides of the back and on scapulars; neck and upper breast washed with 

 pale, brownish rufous; rest of underparts and upper tail-coverts white. Ad. male in summer. 

 Upperparts fuscous-brown, bordered with grayish brown; upper tail-coverts, nape, and a line 

 over the eye white or whitish; sides of the neck_ and breast washed with rufous; rest of the 

 underparts white. Ads. and juv. in winter. Upperparts gray, margined with white; upper 

 tail-coverts white; wings fuscous, their coverts margined with buffy; underparts white. Juv. 

 "Top of head, back, and scapulars dusky blackish, the feathers distinctly bordered with buff; 

 wing-coverts also bordered with pale buff or whitish; upper tail-coverts, superciliary stripe, 

 and lowerparts white, the neck tinged with buff" (Ridgw.). Male, L., 8.75; W., 4.75; Tar., 

 1.20; B., 1.20. Female, L., 9.50; W., 5.25; Tar., 1.30; B., 1.30. (Chap., Birds of E. N. A.) 



