1 88 PHALAROPODID^ : PHALAROPES. 



launch it upon the great deep — you have the Northern 

 Phalarope. You may see a flotilla of these little ani- 

 mated cockle-boats riding lightly on the waves anywhere 

 off the coast of New England. Let a storm arise too 

 violent for such frail creatures to outride, and they will 

 run into harbor anywhere, or even be blown far inland. 

 Such facts as these give the clue to the occasional and 

 irregular occurrences of the Phalarope in New England. 

 They are not rare — hundreds and thousands of them 

 disport off the coast during a great part of the year. 

 Thus Mr. Harold Herrick remarks upon their abund- 

 ance about Grand Menan : " Thousands may be seen all 

 summer on the ' RippHngs ' about eight miles from 

 Menan, where they congregate to feed on the shrimps 

 and animalculse that are drifting in the eddies made by 

 the advancing and receding tide. They never come on 

 shore unless driven by storms, and are so tame, espe- 

 cially in foggy weather, that I have almost run them 

 down with a small boat." 



The statement of the appearance of the birds " all 

 summer " leads to the inference that they breed with 

 us, but I do not know that the fact has been established. 

 They are chiefly known as spring and summer vagrants 

 along the coast, as not common, and as irregular at that. 

 Their general range is very extensive, embracing the 

 coast lines and large inland waters of most of the north- 

 ern hemisphere. They are known to breed in very high 

 latitudes, and to migrate to the tropics in winter. Thus 

 they occur in Spitzbergen in summer, and on the shores 

 of the Polar sea. That they are not strictly maritime is 

 shown by the fact of their presence in our great lakes 

 and rivers, as in Ohio, Illinois, Wyoming, etc. 



Large series of eggs of this Phalarope show such a 



