300 WILSON'S PHALAROPE. 



along our eastern coast, from Boston to New Jersey, as well as in Kentucky 

 and other portions of the Union, I have not seen its nest, nor even its eggs. 

 Mr. Drummond, whose zeal as a student of nature must be known to every 

 one devoted to natural history, had the good fortune to find its nest in the 

 course of his rambles among the Rocky Mountains, but he has given no in- 

 formation respecting its habits. A person who shewed me the skins of two 

 specimens procured in July near Cape May in New Jersey, assured me that 

 he shot them near their nests, and that they had four eggs. While I was in 

 the same neighbourhood, in the month of June 1829, a fisherman gunner, 

 with whom I was at the time residing at Great Egg Harbour, brought me a 

 pair which he had just killed. He represented them as very gentle and 

 easily approached, and said that on going towards them they affected to be 

 lame, and opened their wings as if to induce him to run after them; instead 

 of doing which, however, he immediately fired and killed them both. 

 Having put away the birds in a safe place, he and I took to his boat and 

 went to the island where he had found them. He shewed me the spot on 

 which they had been shot; but although we searched most diligently for the 

 nest, we could not find it. On examining the birds when we returned, I saw 

 that the female must have been sitting. About the same period my son 

 procured two specimens of this Phalarope out of a flock of five, on the rocks 

 at the rapids of the Ohio below Louisville. Late in the summer of 1824 I 

 shot three of them near Buffalo creek on Lake Erie. My generous friend 

 Edward Harris, Esq. presented me, at New York, with a young bird in 

 autumnal plumage, from which I made the figure in the plate; and another, 

 in a most emaciated state, was given me at Boston, in the winter, by my 

 young friend John Bethune, Esq. 



Those which I procured near Lake Erie were engaged in feeding around 

 the borders and in the shallows of a pond of small extent. When I first 

 observed them at some distance, I thought they were Yellow-shanks 

 ( Totanus flavipes), so much did their motions resemble those of that 

 species. Like it, this Phalarope wades in the water up to its body, picks 

 for food right and left, turns about, and performs all its motions with viva- 

 city and elegance. They kept closer together than the Yellow-shanks 

 usually do, but, like them, they would for a few moments raise their wings 

 as if apprehensive of getting into too deep water and being obliged to fly. 

 They preferred flying to swimming on such occasions, although from the 

 general character of the tribe one might expect otherwise. After watching 

 them about a quarter of an hour, during which time they did not utter a 

 single note, I fired at them when they were all close together, and killed the 

 whole. On opening them I found their stomachs to contain small worms 

 and fragments of very delicate shells. The birds seen at the Falls of the 



