The Wilson Phalarope 



Taken in Modoc County 



WILSON PHALAROPE, MALE 

 A-WING 



Photo by the A ulhor 

 AND FEMALE, 



longer militant. They do not have 

 to be. They have arrived. It is 

 sober truth to say that these sturdy 

 pioneers of feminism have assumed 

 all the functions of leadership, in- 

 cluding that of courting, and that 

 they have delegated to the males all 

 domestic cares and responsibilities, 

 save that of laying eggs. 



These birds before me were evi- 

 dently paired and, as manifestly, had 

 local attachments for that particular 

 stretch of grass and weeds and ooze. 

 One pair lit near me as I was photo- 

 graphing a Black Tern's nest, and the 

 male began to poke about in the 

 reeds, like a hen that has forgotten, 

 or pretends to have forgotten , the pre- 

 cise location of her nest. The female 

 dogged his steps and he occasionally 

 chased her off in a petulant way, pre- 

 cisely as a female of any more rational 

 species would have done under like 

 circumstances. Finally, the male housewife disappeared in a certain 

 clump toward which he had already twice feinted. The female came to 

 a standstill and mounted guard for as much as ten minutes. The situa- 

 tion was perfectly clear from an oological standpoint. The eggs were 

 being covered until it suited my pleasure to claim them. Imagine my 

 surprise, therefore, when the female suddenly flitted over the weeds to a 

 more distant clump, to which her dutiful spouse had sneaked, routed him 

 out and made off with him to parts unknown. 



On succeeding days I raked that neck of the swamp with a fine- 

 toothed comb, but all to no avail. The birds came and went without 

 rhyme or reason, now one, now two, and now all four at once; from I knew 

 not where, and disappeared again as mysteriously. If they lighted, the 

 reeds swallowed them up; if they flew, they did it in a demure way which 

 was a rebuke to curiosity. In flying, a bird would sometimes give voice 

 to its disquiet in a sort of hoarse, barking note, a rough monosyllable, 

 wib, which was also occasionally subdued to a mellow croak, oont. This 

 was often a summons, and if uttered by a single bird aloft, would serve to 

 rouse its mate from some recess of the grass; whereupon both would flit 

 away, as though renouncing all claim to that locality. 



Il86 



