114 THE BIRDS OF DEVOX. 



THE PHALAROPES. 



The Phalaropes are very graceful birds, lobe-footed, and 

 elegant swimmers, and of the two European species the 

 Red-necked Phalarope, which is the smaller, breeds annu- 

 ally in a few places in Scotland and in the Hebrides, while 

 the Grey Phalarope is an autumn visitor to our coasts from 

 the far north. They are both remarkable for the changes 

 in their plumage, which in the summer dress has more or 

 less red about it, and in the autumn has the red replaced 

 by grey. The same changes are also charact-eristic of most 

 of the Sandpipers. The Grey Phalarope is more nume- 

 rous as a species, and after severe autumn gales is occa- 

 sionally driven into the English and Bristol Channels in 

 large flocks. In the first edition of Yarrell's ' British Birds,' 

 we find the Phalaropes placed between the Rails and the 

 Geese ; but they are now regarded as members of the 

 Sandpiper family, with which they have more affinity in 

 their habits, colour of their eggs, long secondaries of the 

 wings, structure of the tail, Szc, than they have with 

 the Coots, which they only resemble in their lobed feet. 

 Their true position, however, in our opinion, is near the 

 Gulls and Terns, birds they resemble in their marine 

 habits, the buoyancy with which they swim in the rough- 

 est sea, the facility with which they can rise from the 

 surface of the water, the manner in which they cross the tips 

 of their wings over their backs when swimming, the 

 texture and the delicate grey and white colour of their 

 plumage (in winter), and the great variability of their eggs. 



Red-necked Phalarope. Phalaropus hyperhoreus 

 (Lmn.). 



A casual visitor, of verj- rare occurrence. 



An immature example was obtainpcl at Plymouth in 1831 (J. G.). An 

 adult, in summer plumage, was killed on the Hamoaze just off Tori)oint, 



