( 54 ) 



A DIAEY OF ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSEBVATION MADE 

 IN ICELAND DURING JUNE AND JULY, 1912. 



By Edmund Selous. 



(Continued from vol. xix, p. 307.) 



June 27th. — To-day, for the first time, I saw a Phalarope 

 making that peculiar whirligig motion on the water which is said 

 to constitute its nuptial or courting display. The particular 

 bird thus acting when, at about seven in the morning, I looked 

 out of my tent, was by itself, or, at any rate, there was no other 

 one that I could see very near it. I hastily got hold of the 

 glasses, but before I could get them properly focussed on the 

 bird, it had left off. Annoyed at this, I continued to watch it 

 perseveringly, and my perseverance was rewarded, for after 

 some time had gone by, it began again, going round like a top, 

 without changing its place on the water. Once or twice it 

 varied the motion by jerking itself from side to side only, and 

 then I thought I must have exaggerated the rotary one, but 

 hardly had I begun to doubt when this was indulged in, again, 

 as markedly as before. It was most extraordinary, and did not 

 appear to me to have anything of the character of a display 

 action, but suggested much more some form of nervous de- 

 rangement such as the Dancing Mouse of Japan may be 

 supposed to suffer from. Later, either this same bird or 

 another flew over to the mouth of the little stream I have 

 mentioned, and gyrated gradually up it — but there were, of 

 course, swimming intervals. When he got out of sight I began 

 to follow him, and it then appeared that he was accompanied, 

 though I had not seen the partner bird before. I soon had the 

 satisfaction of seeing them both waltzing in this bizarre manner, 

 separately, indeed, but often near to one another. On two of 

 these occasions one of the revolving birds seemed to think the 

 proximity too close a one, for it flew at the other, who flew a 



