( -267 ) 



A DIARY OF ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION MADE 

 IN ICELAND DURING JUNE AND JULY. 



By Edmund Selou!?. 

 (Continued from p. 152. j 



SiGURDSsoN tells me that be has, to-daj', for the first time, 

 seen a Phalarope dive. He was quite near to it, he says, and 

 could not have been mistaken. This supports my own con- 

 clusion founded on my, all at once, not seeing this or that bird 

 that had been on the water just before, though I never did 

 actually see it either disappear or reappear. 



The island I am on illustrates very well the steps by which 

 this species may have taken to the water in a gradually increasing 

 degree, being, at lirst, only a wading bird. Eor here are places 

 adapted for wading, in close juxtaposition with what are still its 

 breeding-haunts, and were, no doubt, once the scene of its general 

 activities. From them an increasing number of individuals 

 advanced more and more, and farther and farther into the water, 

 till they took to paddling, and, becoming thus water birds 

 proper, lived in it, without respect to the character of the 

 adjacent land, so that they now have often to fly some little 

 way, to get to the old, still-desired breeding-places. 



One may often see one of these Eed-necked Phalaropes 

 floating, apparently, backwards, down a strong or even violent 

 stream. When looked at with more attention, however, it seems 

 to be endeavouring, quite futilely, to swim against it, but not at 

 all uneasy at not being able to. This is on the broad, rapid 

 torrential river that issues from the great lake, where I crossed 

 it. In miniature, however, I have seen the little bird prettily 

 caught, in baby rapids, above a baby waterfall of a tiny stream, 

 turned round in the rapids and floated backwards over the water- 

 fall. But whether it was a real, involuntary turning round, or 

 that thus going backwards, even though with some show of 



