GRAY PHALAROPE. 641 
ponds, and streams of fresh water, where they delight to linger, swim- 
ming near the margin in search of seeds and insects. They go in 
pairs, and we cannot learn that they are any where numerous. These 
circumstances are sufficient to authorize their removal from a tribe to 
which they have little resemblance, except in their general appear- 
ance. Edwards was the first naturalist who introduced them to the 
world; and although he seems to have been convinced that they 
ought to constitute a genus of themselves, yet he contented himself 
with arranging them with the T'ring@, a classification certainly 
neither scientific nor natural. Turton has fallen into the same error, 
which Latham and Pennant have judiciously avoided; and in their 
arrangement, so agreeable to our sentiments of the obvious discrimina- 
tions of nature, we heartily concur. 
The bill of this species is black, slender, straight, and one inch and 
three quarters 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 it; under parts, white ; above, 
dark olive ; wings and legs, black; the scalloped membranes on the 
toes finely serrated on their edges; size of the Turnstone. 
The above description, I am convinced, is imperfect ; but as I have 
not an opportunity of seeing the bird, no better can be obtained. 
Pennant says that the Gray Phalarope inhabits Scandinavia, Ice- 
land and Greenland; in the last, lives on the frozen side, near the 
great lakes; quits the country before winter; is seen on the full seas 
in April and September, in the course of its migration. It is fre- 
quent in all Siberia, about the lakes and rivers, especially in autumn — 
probably in its migration from the Arctic flats; it was also met with 
among the ice between Asia and America. 
The editor has been at considerable pains this spring to procure 
specimens and information of the two Phalaropes, which are figured 
and described in this volume; but he is sorry to declare that his 
endeavors have been unsuccessful. Though he explored our ponds 
and shores many times with his gun, and made frequent inquiries of 
sportsmen, yet he neither saw these birds nor heard of them; and has 
reason to ee a they seldom visit this part of the United States. 
