HVPERBOREAN PHALAROPE. 475 
During summer this bird resorts to lakes and fresh waters, 
though preferring at all times brackish water ; in winter they 
betake themselves to the sea, and are even met with at great 
distances from land, floating among icebergs in the desolate seas 
of the North: they swim still better than the other phalaropes, 
and are met with farther at sea. This species is mostly seen 
in pairs, though sometimes in small flocks, and busily engaged 
in dipping their bill into the water after the minute and almost 
invisible animals of the ocean. ‘They are also much on the 
wing, somewhat like the gulls and terns, and their cry resembles 
that of the greater tern. 
Although the hyperborean phalarope is a very rare visitant 
in the United States, there being a few instances only of its 
being shot in Boston Bay and on Long Island, it breeds 
regularly at Hudson’s Bay; arriving there annually in the 
begmning of June. In the middle of this month they lay 
three or four eggs on a dry spot among the grass: the nest is 
placed on a small hillock near a pond, and contains four very 
small pyriform eggs, resembling those of a snipe in shape, 
but much less, and of a deep olive colour, blotched with 
dusky, so thickly as nearly to obscure the ground colour. 
The young fly in August, and they all depart in September 
for less rigorous climes. In Greenland the species also arrives 
regularly in April and departs in September. ‘This bird 
inhabits the Orkney and Shetland islands, as well as those 
of the Norwegian sea, in considerable numbers during 
summer, breeding there. It is very common in the marshes 
of Sanda and Westra, but especially Landa and North 
Ronaldsha, the two most northerly of the Orkney isles, in 
the breeding season, but leaves them in autumn for milder 
regions. Its favourite abode is the shores of lakes situated 
within the arctic circle: it is plentiful in the northern parts 
of Sweden, Russia, and Norway, as well as the northern coasts 
of Siberia, and between Asia and America, extending its 
irregular wanderings even to the Caspian Sea. In Iceland 
it is observed to come about the middle of May, and re- 
