THE RED-NECKED PHALAROPE. 259 



THE RED-NECKED PHALAROPE (Pliolaropus Tiyperboreus.) 



The feet of this bird resemble pretty nearly those of the 

 coot, but the bird itself is considerably smaller, and longer in 

 proportion in the wings. The shape of the body is far more 

 light, elegant, and adapted for rapid flight, than that of 

 any of the crakes, rails, gallinules, or coots. It has no 

 expression of the heavy character of the gallinaceous birds, or 

 of any of those that look at first sight as if they were loath 

 to use their wings, and which, if we put them to the test, 

 verify the physiognomical expression by running, skulking, 

 hiding themselves, or, as is the case with the gallinule and the 

 coot especially, taking to the water, as if more germain to 

 the element of fishes than to that of birds. The present 

 species, on the contrary, if we disturb it, will instantly vault 

 into the air, and defy us in that element, over which we have 

 the least power. 



Yet the bird is more of a swimming bird than even the 

 coot, but its form and habits link it with swimming birds of 

 very different character, to the gulls, and similar birds, 

 which can turn the wide sea-waves into a pasture, and 

 snatch their finny prey while it is tossed and bewildered in 

 the foam or the surge, and which can also, when occasion 

 serves, run fleetly along the beaches, and pick up their food 

 there. So little resemblance has it, indeed, to the ducks and 

 geese, and other punt-bodied birds, which we are in the habit 

 of seeing dabbling about in mill-ponds and other small pools, 

 that, until we look at its lobed feet, we would never imagine 

 it to be a swimmer. The land bird, with which one would 



inches above* "the surface, the total depth of the mass being from eighteen 

 to twenty-four inches. It is sometimes torn from its mooring and 

 washed down the stream by floods, the female still continuing her incu- 

 bation, as if aware that it would soon float into a place of safety. The 

 eggs, seven to ten in number, are of a dirty greenish-white, freckled and 

 spotted with brown. M. 



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