14 BROWN PIIALAROPE. 



former is precisely the same as that of the tenth edition, which cites for 

 authority Edwards's 46 and 143, as before mentioned. 



I shall now give the short description of the bird figured in the plate, 

 as I find it in Wilson's note book. 



Bill black, slender, and one inch and three eighths* in length, lores, 

 front, crown, hind-head, and thence to the back, very pale ash, nearly 

 white ; from the anterior angle of the eye a curving stripe of black 

 descends along the neck for an inch or more : thence to the shoulders 

 dark reddish brown, which also tinges the white on the side of the neck 

 next to it ; under parts white ; above dark olive ; wings and legs black. 

 Size of the Turn-stone. 



The specimen from which the following description was taken, was 

 kindly communicated to me by my friend, Mr. Titian R. Peale, while it 

 was yet in a recent state, and before it was prepared for the museum. 

 It was this individual which enabled me to ascertain the species figured 

 in our plate. It was shot in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, on the 

 seventh of May, 1818. 



Bill narrow, slender, flexible, subulate, of equal width ; nostrils basal 

 and linear ; lobes of the toes thick, narrow, and but slightly scalloped ; 

 outer toe connected to the middle one as far as the first joint, inner toe 

 divided nearly to its base ; hind toe resting on the ground. 



Bill black, one inch and three-eighths in length ; head above of an 

 ash gray ; hind-head whitish, which color extends a short distance down 

 the neck ; over the eyes a white stripe, below them a white spot ; throat 

 and lower parts white ; a line of black passes through the eyes, spreads 

 out towards the hind-head, and descends along the neck ; lower part of 

 the neck pale ferruginous; back part of the neck deep ferruginous, 

 which descends on each side, and mingles with the plumage of the back 

 and scapulars, which are of a clove brown, the feathers tipped with 

 whitish ; wings and tail dark clove brown, some of the lesser coverts 

 having a reddish tinge ; the upper tail feathers tinged with red at their 

 tips, the under feathers marked with white on their inner webs ; irides 

 dark brown ; legs and feet dark plumbeous ; claws long, of a dark horn 

 color ; hind toe, independent of the claw, five-sixteenths of an inch long ; 

 the tertials, when the wing is closed, extend to within three-eighths of 

 an inch of the tip of the primaries ; weight an ounce and three-quar- 

 ters ; length nine inches and a half, breadth sixteen inches. This was 

 a female, her eggs very small. 



In the grand chain of animated nature, the Phalaropes constitute one 



* In the original the bill is said to be one inch and three-quarters long; but that 

 this is a mistalce, we hare only to measure the bill of the figure, drawn of half the 

 size of nature, to bo convinced. Wilson always measured his bills from the tip to 

 the angle of the mouth. Our figure, by this admeasurement, indicates a bill of 

 precisely the length of that of Peale's specimen, which I have described in detail. 



