610 



6 



yards distance. Mr. Blyth procured a single specimen in the Calcutta Market ; but it has never 

 yet been recorded by any other observer from India. It is, however, as I ascertained, a regular 

 and well-known visitor to the seas that wash the Sindh and Mekran coasts, and I myself again 

 observed it in the open sea between Kurrachee and Bombay." The occurrence at Calcutta 

 above referred to is that recorded by Mr. Blyth, who says (Ibis, 1859, p. 464) that one specimen 

 in winter plumage was obtained in the Calcutta provision-bazaar on the 11th May, 1846. Mr. 

 Swinhoe did not meet with it in China, but says that it has been procured from Kamtchatka 

 and the Kurile Islands, and doubtless visits the interior of China. 



On the American continent it occurs during summer in the high north, and, according to 

 Professor Spencer F. Baird, is found throughout temperate North America during migration and 

 in winter. It occurs off the coast of New Brunswick, from which I have seen a tolerably fair 

 number of specimens. How far south it is met with I am unable to say with certainty ; but it 

 has been obtained in the State of New York. On the west coast Messrs. Dall and Bannister 

 met with it in Alaska ; and the former states that it was not very rare at the Yukon mouth in 

 June 1868. Abundant at Plover Bay, on the Asiatic side of Behring's Straits, in large flocks in 

 July and August; and Mr. Bannister writes that he shot one at the Redoubt in the fall of 1865, 

 and saw flocks along the beach in September 1866. Audubon (B. of Am. v. p. 293) says that it 

 is met with " occasionally in flocks in Kentucky, on the Ohio ; during the autumn it is often 

 seen at sea on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and stragglers at times reach as far south as 

 New Jersey ; but the route of this species toward warmer regions is along the Pacific coast." 



In its general habits and mode of nidification the present species closely resembles its 

 near ally Phalaropus hyperboreus ; but its breeding-haunts are far further north than those of 

 that species. It breeds in Greenland, according to Dr. Kriiper, commonly above 68° N. lat. ; 

 and, judging from the number of eggs obtained thence by Mr. Erichsen, it must breed nume- 

 rously near Upernavik and Egedesminde. As above stated, it has been found breeding in 

 Spitzbergen. Von Middendorff found it breeding in Northern Siberia; and, according to Sir 

 John Richardson, it breeds in North America, on the North Georgian Islands and Melville 

 Peninsula. Its nest is described as being a mere depression in the ground ; and one which 

 Mr. Erichsen sent to me (having caused the piece of peat to be cut out) is a mere depression in 

 the peat without any lining whatever. Von Middendorff says that he found fresh eggs on the 

 17th (29th) July (June 1 ?), and saw half-fledged young on the 25th July, O. S. He describes 

 the note of this bird as resembling that of the Red-necked Phalarope, but more Finch-like. I 

 possess twenty eggs of this species from Greenland, taken at Egedesminde and Upernavik, most 

 of which in general character resemble those of Phalaropus hyperboreus, but are, as a rule, 

 stouter and larger ; and in many the ground-colour is paler. Two clutches, each of four eggs, 

 from Upernavik have the ground-colour pale greenish grey or sea-green, and are covered with 

 purplish brown underlying shell-markings, and very clearly defined blackish brown surface-spots, 

 which at the larger end are almost confluent ; and one egg has the larger end covered with one 

 large blackish brown blotch, the rest of the egg being very slightly marked. In size they vary 

 from 1-^ by ff to l^y by f-§ inch, and in shape resemble those of the Red-necked Phalarope, 

 being pear-shaped, but are somewhat stouter. 



Mr. Herbert S. Hawkins informs me that in a large series of eggs he has received from 



