WILSONS PHALAROPE. 401 



Those which I procured near Lake Erie were engaged in feeding 

 around the borders and in the shallows of a pond of small extent. When 

 I first observed them at some distance, I thought they were Yellow-shanks 

 {Totanus Jlavipes), so much did their motions resemble those of that spe- 

 cies. Like it, this Phalarope wades in the water up to its body, picks for 

 food right and left, turns about, and performs all its motions with viva- 

 city and elegance. They kept closer together than the Yellow-shanks 

 usually do, but, like them, they would for a few moments raise their wings 

 as if apprehensive of getting into too deep water and being obliged to fly. 

 They preferred flying to swimming on such occasions, although from the 

 general character of the tribe one might expect otherwise. After watch- 

 ing them about a quarter of an hour, during which time they did not utter 

 a single note, I fired at them when they were all close together, and killed 

 the whole. On opening them I found their stomachs to contain small 

 worms and fragments of very dehcate shells. The birds seen at the Falls 

 of the Ohio flew in the manner of the Common Snipe, proceeding at first 

 in an undulating or zigzag line, but more steadily after reaching a certain 

 elevation, when they came pretty close together, wheeled a few times, and 

 alighted again near the same shallow pools. 



Dr Richardson, who found this species breeding on the Saskatchewan, 

 says " it lays two or three eggs among the grass on the margins of small 

 lakes : they are very obtuse at one end, taper much at the other, and have 

 a colour intermediate between yellowish-grey and cream-yellow, inter- 

 spersed with small roundish spots and a few larger blotches of umber- 

 brown, more crowded at the obtuse end. The eggs measure sixteen lines 

 and a half in length and eleven across." 



I observed scarcely any difference in the colouring of the sexes, the 

 female being merely larger than the male. 



Phalaropus Wilsonii, CA. -Boraajoarte, Synopsis of Birds of the United States, p. 342. 

 Gray Phalarope, Phalaropus lobatus, Wils, Amer. Ornith. vol. ix. p. 72. pi. 73. 



fig. 2. 

 Wilson's Phalarope, Phalaropus Wilsonii, Ch. Bonaparte, Amer. Ornith. vol. iv. 



p. 59. pi. 24. fig. 1. Adult ; and pi. 25. fig. 1. Young. 

 Phalaropus Wilsonii, Wilson's Phalarope, Swains, and Richards, Fauna Bor. 



Amer. part ii. p. 405, pi. 69. 

 American Phalarope, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 245. 



Adult Male. Plate CCLIV. Fig. 1. 



Bill long, very slender, flexible, flattened towards the end. Upper 



VOL. III. c c 



