MARSH BIRDS 115 



Its habits at the mating season are most interesting. 

 "As the season comes on when the flames of love mount 

 high, the dull-colored male moves about the pool, apparently 

 heedless of the surrounding fair ones. Such stoical indiffer- 

 ence usually appears too much for the feelings of some of 

 the fair ones to bear. A female coyly glides close to him 

 and bows her head in pretty submissiveness, but he turns 

 away, pecks at a bit of food, and moves off; she follows and 

 he quickens his speed, but in vain; he is her choice." 



Then, after the four dark and heavily marked eggs are 

 laid, the "captive male is introduced to new duties, and 

 spends half his time on the eggs, while the female keeps 

 about the pool close by." 



Their nests, at best, consist of only a few blades of grass 

 and fragments of moss laid loosely together. Often the eggs 

 are laid in some convenient hollow, with no bedding what- 

 ever except that which happened to lodge there. 



WILSON'S PHALAROPE 



Of the three Phalaropes inhabiting North America this 

 is the only one peculiar to this continent. Their range 

 extends across the United States and southern Canada from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific, much more common in the 

 interior. They breed from northern Illinois and Utah 

 northward, wintering south to Brazil and Patagonia. An 

 extremely interesting species, it feeds principally in shallow 

 water, either by wading or swimming. The feathers on the 

 breast are long and compact, and the birds are just as 

 immune from the water as are our more aquatic ducks and 



