456 "  WILSON’S PHALAROPE. 
inside with a small entire membrane, articulated rather high 
and internally, touching the ground at tip: the nails are 
short, curved, and acute: the wings long, falciform, and 
acute, the first primary being the longest: the quills twenty- 
five in number. The tail is short, and consists of twelve 
feathers, with its under-coverts extending quite to the tip. 
The female is but little different from the male, but larger 
and handsomer in full plumage. The young are very differ- 
ent from the adults, and they vary much with age. They 
moult twice in the year, their colours changing strangely, 
which has occasioned the wanton multiplication of species. 
Their plumage is close, thick, abundantly furnished with 
down, and impermeable to water. Their colours are princi- 
pally brownish and reddish, changing in winter to grey and 
white, which is always to be found on their under parts. 
Their habits are essentially aquatic. They inhabit the 
sea-coasts, the shores of lakes and occasionally of rivers ; are 
eregarious, but never collect in large flocks. Probably from 
being so seldom met with, they show little dread of mankind, 
and allow of the nearest approach; and not being alarmed at 
the report of a gun, it is easy to kill several without moving 
from one spot. Their food consists of aquatic insects and other 
small animals that are found in the water. They are strictly 
monogamous, and are generally seen in pairs, carrying fidelity 
to an extreme: delighting in their peculiar element, they even 
copulate on the sea, and reluctantly leave it to build their nest 
on shore, among grasses: they lay from four to six eggs, which 
both sexes incubate, the male being even more strongly marked 
on the belly by the naked places which this causes: they share 
between them all the parental duties, and the young leave the 
nest, run about and swim, as soon as they are hatched. The 
phalaropes are hardly ever seen on dry ground, where, how- 
ever, they walk and run swiftly, without the embarrassment of 
some other birds of less aquatic propensities. Though cer- 
tainly the smallest of swimmers, they perform this operation 
with great dexterity, resisting the heaviest waves, or rising over 
