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WILSON'S PHALAROPE. 



Phalaropus Wilsonii, Sabine. 



PLATE CCLIV. Male and Young. 



The habits of this beautiful species are little known, for so irregularly 

 does it perform its migrations, and so rarely does it settle for any length of 

 time in any part of the United States, that at present few opportunities of 

 studying them occur. Although I have found individuals in various places 

 along our eastern coast, from Boston to New Jersey, as well as in Ken- 

 tucky and other portions of the Union, I have not seen its nest, nor even 

 its eggs. Mr Dkummond, whose zeal as a student of nature must be 

 known to every one devoted to natural history, had the good fortune to 

 find its nest in the course of his rambles among the Rocky Mountains, 

 but he has given no information respecting its habits. A person who 

 shewed me the skins of two specimens procured in July near Cape May 

 in New Jersey, assured me that he shot them near their nests, and that 

 they had four eggs. While I was in the same neighbourhood, in the 

 month of June 1829, a fisherman gunner, with whom I was at the time 

 residing at Great Egg Harbour, brought me a pair which he had just 

 killed. He represented them as very gentle and easily approached, and 

 said that on going towards them they affected to be lame, and opened 

 their wings as if to induce him to run after them ; instead of doing which, 

 however, he immediately fired and killed them both. Having put away 

 the birds in a safe place, he and I took to his boat and went to the island 

 where he had found them. He shewed me the spot on which they had 

 been shot ; but although we searched most diligently for the nest, we 

 could not find it. On examining the birds when we returned, I saw that 

 the female must have been sitting. About the same period my son pro- 

 cured two specimens of this Phalarope out of a flock of five, on the rocks 

 at the rapids of the Ohio below Louisville. Late in the summer of 1824 

 I shot three of them near Buffalo Creek on I>ake Erie. My generous 

 friend Edward Harris, Esq. presented me, at New York, with a young 

 bird in autumnal plumage, from which I made the figui'e in the plate ; 

 and another, in a most emaciated state, was given me at Boston in the 

 winter by my young fi'iend John Bethune, Esq. 



