The Henpecked Shorebird That Goes to Sea 149 



of mates! What disgust must be aroused by a review of the 

 summer schedule of these males! 



It cannot be an easy task to raise these active precocial 

 mites, which can swim on the first day of their life and can 

 run nimbly about clad in their rich buff upper down and 

 silver gray underparts. The males act, I suppose, much like 

 the females of other species, and call, scratch, probe, and 

 peck, and indicate by example just how a mature and capable 

 phalarope proceeds in the business of getting a living. The 

 three or four chicks may all live, they may be all wiped out, 

 or perhaps one or two may be secured by a persistent skua 

 or jaeger, or by some wily mammal. 



If I have treated the family activities of the phalaropes 

 in a rather unscientific vein, it is not because I fail to realize 

 the mental limitations of birds and their inability to reason 

 and think. I have taken this course because the situation is 

 so unusual and amusing as to be worth presenting in that 

 way. Perhaps it is well to remark that many questions con- 

 cerning this apparent reversal of family duties remain unan- 

 swered. How common is the practice among other species? 

 What suggestions have been made to explain its origin? Mat- 

 ing ardor of male birds is usually regarded as exceeding that 

 of the females, which normally perform the greater part of 

 the duties of nest building and the brooding and care of the 

 young. Can it be that the assuming of this work by the male 

 leads to the mating aggressiveness of the female? 



The early arrival of phalaropes has greatly puzzled me. 

 Two of them were obviously young birds. The nesting rec- 

 ords in the Yukon region appear to indicate that no young 

 appear before the third week in June. Could one of these 

 birds acquire its flying plumage, make the long trip south, 

 and appear in early August? Or is it possible that the breed- 

 ing range extends farther south than is usually thought? It 

 has been stated that the Indians of the Pacific Coast claimed 

 that the bird nested along the coast of British Columbia but 



