452 Lobipedidcv. 



174. RED-NECKED PHALAROPE (PUalaropus 

 hypcrboreus). 



This elegant but diminutive species is far more rare in England 

 than its larger congener. The specific name, hyperboreus, fully 

 declares its habitat, for it ranges over all the Arctic regions of 

 the Old and New Worlds, and descends as low as the Orkneys 

 and the northern coast of Scotland, where it is not uncommon. 

 The plumage may be generally described as lead-coloured above ; 

 chest and neck reddish bay, otherwise white below. I have a 

 notice from Mr. Elgar Sloper that a male bird in the breeding 

 plumage was shot by him in the brickfield at Old Park in May, 

 184], and that, as the pinion of one wing was the only part in- 

 jured, it lived for several weeks, feeding in the water on animal 

 food with which Mr. Sloper supplied it, and swimming with great 

 facility : and the Rev. T. A. Preston, in the autumn of 1869, re- 

 corded a specimen killed in a garden at Marlborough, with 

 plumage in a transition state between the summer and winter 

 dress. These are the only notices I have of the occurrence in 

 our county of this stranger from the extreme North. The distin- 

 guishing mark by which it may be recognised, without fear of 

 confusion with its congener, is its more slender beak : hence in 

 Sweden it is known as Smal-ndbbad Simm-Sndppa, 'Small- 

 billed Swimming Snappa ' ; and in Lapland it is called by the 

 Finnish squatters Wesitiainen, or ' Water- Sparrow,' which shows 

 a paucity of idea in regard to the several species of birds on the 

 part of those gentlemen. Reinhardt reports that it breeds in 

 Greenland, and in Spitzbergen it is common enough to have 

 earned two names, being known there as the ' North-East Bird/ 

 doubtless from its indifference to the coldest blasts of air, and 

 also as ' Mahogany Bird,' from the colour of its neck. In Orkney 

 it is known as ' Half- Web,' and Selby attributes to it the pro- 

 vincial name of * Water Snipe.' In frequenting the icy regions 

 of the extreme North, in its fearlessness of man, and in its general 

 appearance and habits, it closely resembles its congener last 

 described. Our countryman Montagu, in the Supplement to his 



