Contributions to the OrnitJiology of India, Sfd. ^45* 



Dr. Jerdon says, that he once obtained a specimen on the sea 

 coast at Nellore ; but no other instance of its occurrence in India 

 has been recorded. It wants the hind toe altogether and its 

 bill is somewhat more plover-like than the rest of the stints and 

 snippets, and this has led some ornitholog-ists to unite it with 

 the plovers as an aberrant member of the group. I particularly 

 watched this species as I had never before seen it alive, and I 

 noticed as a fact that it consorted rather with ^gialitu than 

 Tringa. Very often they were all mixed up tog-ether ; but I ob- 

 served (it was impossible to pick your birds) that I got more 

 sanderlings, with lots consisting chiefly of JSgialitis than with 

 others composed chiefly of Tringas, and this was also the case 

 with StrejpsUas interpres. A fine male measured, length, 7*5 ; 

 expanse, 14'7 ; tail from vent, % ; wing, 4'7 ; wings, when closed, 

 reached to 0"3 beyond end of tail j bill at front, 0"93 ; tarsus, 

 0-92 ; weight, 1-7 oz. 



889.— Phalaropus fulicarius, L. 



I first saw this species when out fishing about two miles out- 

 side the Kurrachee Harbour. A small party of about 20, if I. 

 remember rightly, swimming about merrily in the open sea. I 

 saw similar parties in various localities, the whole way up the 

 Gulf of Oman, and they are equally common, I was told, in the 

 Persian Gulf. So far as my experience goes they are very wary, 

 rising, en masse, and skimming along the surface of the water, 

 for a couple of hundred yards or so, as soon as the boat approaches 

 within a hundred yards of them. "With very great difficulty, 

 though i often went after them, I secured a single specimen in 

 the open sea, half way between Gwader and Muscat, and that I 

 dropped out of a flock at fully a hundred yards distance. Mr. 

 Blyth procured a single specimen in the Calcutta market, but ifr 

 has never yet been recorded by any other observer from India. 

 It is, however, as I ascertained, a regular and well known visitor 

 to the seas that wash the Sindh and Mekran Coasts, and I my- 

 self again observed it in the open sea between Kurrachee and 

 Bombay. The specimen I procured was a female. Length to^ 

 end of tail, 7*9; the lower tail coverts project 0"1 beyond the' 

 end of tail ; expanse, 13'8 ; tail from vent, 1'7; wing, 4*4; 

 wings, when closed, reach to the end of tail; tarsus, 0"82; bill 

 at front, 0*92 ; the second qxiill the longest ; the first, 0*08 and 

 the third, 0'15 shorter than the second. 



The bill is black; irides brown; the legs and feet, pale 

 plumbeous blue, dusky on claws, joints, and exterior of tarsus. 



The lores, forehead, crown, chin, cheeks, front, and sides 

 of the neck; breast, abdomen, vent, lower tail coverts, sides 



