PHALAROPES 



{Family Phalaropodidae) 



Wilson's Phalarope 



(Phalaropus tricolor) 



Called also: SEA SNIPE; SWIMMING SANDPIPER; LOBE- 

 FOOTED HOLOPODE; SEA GOOSE. 



Length — 8.25 to 9 inches. Smaller than a robin; female the larger. 



Female: In summer — "Top of the head and middle of the back 

 pearl gray, nape white; a black streak passes through the 

 eye to the side of the neck, and, changing to rufous chest- 

 nut, continues down the sides of the back and on the scap- 

 ulars; neck and upper breast washed with pale, brownish 

 rufous; rest of the under parts and upper tail coverts, white. 



Male: In summer — Upper parts fuscous brown, bordered with 

 grayish brown; upper tail coverts, nape, and a line over the 

 eye white or whitish; sides of the neck and breast washed 

 with rufous; rest of the under parts white. 



Adults: In winter — Upper parts gray, margined with white; 

 upper tail coverts white; wings fuscous, their coverts mar- 

 gined with buffy; under parts white." — (Chapman.) 



Range — ^Temperate North America, most abundant in the inte- 

 rior; nesting from northern Illinois and Utah northward, and 

 wintering southward to Brazil and Patagonia. 



Season — Chiefly a migrant in the United States; more rarely a 

 summer resident. 



Without the help of the woman's college, club, or bicycle, 

 the female phalarope has emancipated herself from most of 

 the bondages of her sex, showing a fine scorn for its con- 

 ventional proprieties. It is she who, wearing the handsome 

 feathers and boasting a larger size than the male — although 

 neither bird is so large as a robin, — undertakes to woo her 

 coy sweetheart by bold advances. Possibly a brazen rival adds 



