NORTHERN I'HAI.AROfE SEEKING FOOD 

 Note the feedin|;-pl3ce juit abandoned at the left 



The Feeding Habits of the Northern Phalarope 



By FRANK M, CHAPMAN 



With photojjraph* from nature by the author 



THE discovery of a well-marked trait or habit in bird-life is so unusual 

 an experience, that among all the interesting incidents which crowded 

 a trip to California, as a member of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union excursion of 1902, I recall with most satisfaction several hours passed 

 with the Northern Phalaropes at Monterey, on May 27. 



A record-breaking northwest wind had been blowing for over two weeks. 

 It had evidently rendered navigation impossible for the Northern, as well as 

 Red Phalaropes, and these seafarers among the Snipe, while voyaging to 

 their Arctic summer homes, were stranded on the coast in vast numbers. 

 A week later we found many wrecks of this feathered fleet ashore on the 

 Farallones, their poor, emaciated little bodies floating in the rock-inclosed 

 pools left by the tide. 



I had previously known this bird only as an inhabitant of the Atlantic, 

 where 1 had seen it in great beds resting in the waters or rising in silvery, 

 curling waves before the approach of our steamer, and while I regretted the 

 disaster which had befallen the half-starved little waifs, I realized that their 

 ill luck was my good fortune, and lost no time in availing myself of this ex- 

 ceptional opportunity to make the acquaintance of a bird which but few 

 naturalists have met intimately. 



All the quiet bodies of water contained Phalaropes, a large pond in the 

 city of Monterey being fairly speckled with them. As, with several members 

 of the A. O. U. party, I approached its margin, I was not a little astonished 

 to observe that apparently one-half the Phalaropes in it were spinning about 

 in the most remarkable manner. They might have been automatic teetotums. 



The sight of this singular action aroused vague memories of a description 

 of it as a courtship ceremonial. It will be remembered that marital relations 



(273) 



