WILSON’S PHALAROPE. A455 
sideration, Phalaropus contained but two real species, out of 
which as many had been formed as their changeable plumage 
exhibits phases, and, what is worse, the nominal species 
founded on the one had been confounded with those taken 
from the other, and the different plumage of each taken for 
varieties of its relative, so that not even the two real species 
were accurately known apart, though so different as to form 
each of them the type of a peculiar group, in the same manner 
as we have observed is the case with the P. Walsonti. They 
are found in the north of both continents, the present being 
peculiar to America, which possesses them all. Cuvier, losing 
sight of the strong common tie that connects the phalaropes, 
has separated his two groups, Phalaropus and Lobipes, and 
has placed the one near Tinga, and the other near Totanus, 
on account of the analogy of the bill, regarding the Phala- 
ropus as a pinnate-footed Tringa, and the Lobipes as a 
pinnate-footed Totanus. Vieillot, in adopting these groups 
as genera, placed them adjoining each other in a separate 
family, but he changed Cuvier’s names into Crymo- 
philus and Phalaropus, transposing the latter name to 
the other group, the Lobipes of Cuvier. All the three 
known phalaropes are distinguished by a moderate, slender, 
straight, and subcylindrical bill: both mandibles are fur- 
rowed each side nearly their whole length, and the upper 
somewhat curved at the point; the lower is hardly shorter, 
quite straight, and the point subulate. ‘The nostrils are in 
the furrows, basal, longitudinal, linear, half closed by a mem- 
brane. ‘Their head is small, completely feathered, compressed 
and rounded above ; the eyes are small, the neck well-propor- 
tioned, and the body roundish. ‘The feet are moderately long, 
four-toed ; the naked space on the tibia rather extensive ; the 
tarsus as long as the middle toe, moderate, robust, somewhat 
compressed, and scutellated ; the toes are moderate and rather 
slender, the three anterior bordered by a festooned membrane, 
and the outer at least is always connected at base to the 
middle one; the hind toe is short, bordered only on the 
